Fourteen Hours
by Sara Eleanor Rose
Summary: When the Goblin King snatches a lonely Tegan Young off the TARDIS, Grace Anscombe and the Doctor have thirteen hours to retrieve her. Assuming they can navigate the Labyrinth. And assuming she wants to go back. Rated T to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

A/N: This story comes between chapters fifteen and sixteen of our Doctor Who fanfiction "Saxon Ruled Britain Self Insertion Ruled the TARDIS" (properly, "While Saxon Ruled Britain, Self Insertion Ruled the TARDIS"). This will make considerably more sense if you read that far first.

Unlike Doctor Who (which we do not own), Tegan and Grace know nothing about Labyrinth (which we also don't own), so you don't have to know anything either in order to read this.

Author key (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT):

_Italics is Grace Anscombe's perspective (Zoe Alice Latimer)_

Normal (vaguely) is Tegan Young's perspective (Sara Eleanor Rose)

* * *

><p>"I can't believe we're going to meet C.S. Lewis!" Grace squealed.<p>

"Ooh, don't call him that." The Doctor grinned at her excitement. "He likes to be called Jack. Run off and get into something 1950s, I think."

"Forties," corrected Martha with a glance at the monitor.

"If time was money, you'd be in debt," Grace snorted.

"I am," he muttered. Grace was halfway through the corridor by that point, but I'd heard him and couldn't help but laugh.

He turned suddenly, and looked at me as though he was sure I hadn't been there a minute ago. "Tegan..."

I wasn't sure what to do, so I said, "Right, I'll just go and change, too."

"Erm, yeah."

.,.,.,.,,.,.,.,

_What just happened?_ I thought to myself as I walked down the corridor. _How did the Doctor not know I was here? Oh right, _Garace _was in the room._

I checked myself quickly. Where had _that _come from? Maybe it had come from the fact that Grace hadn't been brilliant, she'd been going off a script. Meanwhile, I, having never read the book, was thinking on my feet—and was promptly forgotten for my trouble! I shook my head, as if trying to rid myself of those thoughts. I was happy for Grace, of course I was happy for Grace...wasn't I?

I took a deep breath and started to head for the TARDIS wardrobe.

"I _knew_ the Doctor was going to meet him sometime!" Grace said, pulling on a sweater.

"How's that?"

Her head poked through, hair giving a static crackle. "Teg, he wrote about a wardrobe that was bigger on the inside!"

"Are you thinking it could be a Chameleon Circuit disguising another TARDIS? Is that even possible?"

She smoothed out her skirt. "Let's analyze this. We're with the Doctor about to meet C.S. Lewis who likes to be called Jack…"

"So we'll definitely have to consider it as a possibility," I said, my smile a bit forced.

"These clothes feel so weird. Like I'm playing dress-up with my great-grandma's clothes."

"Aw, you look great. Are you ready, then?"

She shoved a plastic bracelet on her wrist. "Hold on, let me grab a mirror."

"I said, you look great!" I called as she left the room. "How long is she gonna keep doing that?"

_It's only forever, _a soft voice sang. _Not long at all._

I whirled around, but there was nobody there.

"Who are you?" I asked.

_The lost and the lonely, _it responded.

"Why can't I see you?" I asked. And there he was.

Funny thing is, I can't think of any words to describe him. He wasn't what I would consider good looking, but I couldn't take my eyes off him. He was almost hypnotizing.

No, scratch that, he _was _hypnotizing.

"No one can blame you for walking away," he sang.

I knew that he was talking—er, singing—about Sunday.

"Too much rejection?" he sang, almost questioningly.

"I w-wouldn't say that..." I tried to explain, but my head was feeling fuzzy. His eyes were making it very difficult to think clearly. He smiled slightly in a way that sent shivers down my spine. I wanted to look away, I wanted to run, but I couldn't.

"But down in the Underground, you'll find someone true."

But didn't I already have somebody? I couldn't think.

"Down in the Underground...a land serene, a Crystal moon."

It sounded lovely. No buts, no inhibitions, it truly sounded nice.

At that moment, he held out his hand.

At that moment, I had no buts, no inhibitions.

I took his hand.

Through the darkness that overwhelmed me, I faintly heard him singing.

"It's only forever, not long at all. The lost and the lonely is what's underground."

,.,.,.,.,.,..,

_"Garace, Tegan, you sorted yet? Martha's already waiting in the Inklings' pub!"_

_I walked up to the console slowly. "Doctor, Tegan's missing."_

_He kept grinning. "It's a big TARDIS. I'll yell louder. TEE—"_

_"No, Doctor, I mean it!" I cried. "She was in the walk-in closet a minute ago. I walked out to get a mirror, and when I went back, she was gone. There were only those two rooms!"_

_The Doctor's crestfallen eyes narrowed at me. "What have you got behind your back, Garace?"_

_I stiffened, somehow unwilling to release it. I turned it around in my fingertips, then carefully brought it out. In my palms I cradled a smallish glass sphere. "I found it on the closet floor."_

_The Doctor blanched and raced for the door. "Right on the floor! In plain sight! He's doing this _so _I'll know!"_

_"What? Who? What are you—?"_

_"I have to get Martha before he gets her t—No. No, no, no!"_

_I gasped to see a castle and a huge maze—a labyrinth, really—outside the TARDIS door. "Where are we? And—Tegan?"_

_The Doctor snatched the crystal out of my hand. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

_"Oh my gosh, I hate it when you say that."_

_He sagged against the doorframe, looking all of a sudden old and tired, and kneaded his free palm into his eyes. "Stupid old Doctor. Stupid, stupid Doctor."_

_Tentatively, I touched his arm. "Why? I get that you're stupid and sorry, but why?"_

_"Right, long story short. A human not from Earth has whisked Tegan to the center of that Labyrinth." He pointed out the door._

_ "How'd he get her off the TARDIS?" Thinking, _Trans-mat beam? _I was about to complain about the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan, but thought better of it._

_"Magic."_

_"What?"_

_"He does it by magi—oh, don't give me that look, it's just different sort of science." He heaved a sigh. "Humans, you chose numbers. Your science is governed by numbers. Right string of numbers, right equation, you can split the atom, but there are creatures who use words to the same effect. Carrionites, for instance."_

_I withheld a smile at the reference. He didn't notice._

_"Some humans have found a way to harness Psionic energy the same way: words become energy. But humans have unused brain capacity, and Psionic energy activates those. Thus_ thought_ becomes energy."_

_"So, you're saying he thought about you and connected with—Tegan? That doesn't seem to make sense."_

_"No, because it doesn't make sense at all. My guess is he's been watching Tegan for a while."_

_"Great. My best friend's been abducted by alien stalkers!"_

_"Well, actually, he's just the one, and strictly speaking he's not an alien. He's human criminal from another planet, and this is his prison—I put him here—but that's not the point anyway! Even if he's called the Goblin King 'cause of his hobby of collecting goblins for the Labyrinth."_

"What?" _I took several deep breaths. "You know what, explain goblins later. The obvious question is, can we get Tegan back?"_

_"Definitely."_

_"Then why does your face say maybe? Can't __we just take the TARDIS to the center of the Labyrinth?"  
><em>

_The Doctor sighed, as if he'd _really _hoped he wouldn't have to tell me this. "Look, I was just a kid when I met Jareth. He convinced me to strike a deal."  
><em>

_"You struck a deal with an alien you were arresting?"  
><em>

_"I was a child! I was only ninety!"  
><em>

_This should've made me sigh or roll my eyes, but it actually made sense to me. He continued, "Anyway, what threw me off was that he didn't want to barter for his freedom or my life or anything like that; he was afraid of being lonely. So, I had pity on him and gave him a Briealiate Crystal."  
><em>

_"A what?"  
><em>

_"It's a sort of camera-thing. Briealites could form a psychic link with anyone in the universe, and use a Crystal to keep an eye on them."  
><em>

_"And you gave this to a criminal."  
><em>

_"It's easy to judge in hindsight. I figured he'd use it to watch his family or something. Problem is, he took that moment to tell me that he'd already created a link between me and him. Thus manipulating me into making a deal."  
><em>

_"Which entails?"  
><em>

_"He can't just take somebody—they need to want to leave; and I can't use the TARDIS—I have to navigate the Labyrinth on foot."  
><em>

_"That's it? That's how specific you were?"  
><em>

_"'Fraid so."_

_"For a super alien genius, you are awfully thick."  
><em>

_"Yeah, well."_

_I pointed at the crystal in his hand. "Is that the crystal you gave him?"_

_"No, this is a cheap sleight of hand crystal. Head in the game, Garace!" He twirled it between his fingers. The light flashing off it was mesmerizing…_

_I shook my head to clear it. "Tegan isn't a game. So, how long have we got?"  
><em>

_"Thirteen hours from the time she was taken."  
><em>

_"Which was how long ago?"  
><em>

_"I'm not sure."  
><em>

_I looked in his eyes and realized how bad the situation was. He was _scared.

_"So… we start at the beginning," I said firmly, straightening my skirt as if that were some universal gesture of defiance. _

_"It doesn't look that far."_

_He gave me a look. "Yeah it does."_

_I inhaled. "Yeah it does. But, I can see the gates from here. What about Martha and C.—Jack?"_

_"Oh, they should be fine." He sounded preoccupied. "Once we have Tegan, we can go straight back. Five minutes for Martha."_

_I decided to put in a good word. "And if something does go wrong, Martha is clever."_

_"Brilliant," he agreed._

_I had to push those concerns aside. With the Doctor, you learn to move fast in more ways than one. "So, Tegan… Labyrinth… Thirteen-ish hours. Does the sonic do concrete?" (I wasn't completely clear on everything the sonic could do, despite all my knowledge.)_

_"Actually, can't use that in the Labyrinth either."_

_I nodded dramatically. "Of course. Is that _the_ Labyrinth, like _the_ Doctor?"_

_"NEVER like the Doctor," he said, as if he couldn't fathom that I'd make such a comparison. Holding the crystal at arm's length, he dropped it and let it shatter._

_,.,.,.,.,.,.,._

Iwoke up with a splitting headache. I had a moment of delirium in which I thought I was still at home, and was wondering why my room had changed from brown wood paneling to a beige sort of concrete. Then came a moment of excitement when I remembered, in this precise order, Grace! Vworp! TARDIS! Doctor!

Next came the inevitable crash as I remembered the events prior to losing consciousness.

Right on cue, He-Who-Had-Yet-To-Be-Named walked in the door. He was tall and thin, with chalky white-blonde rock star's hair sticking out and hanging down his shoulders. As unusual as it was, it wasn't his hair that caught my eye, and held it. It was his eyes. Pale blue and deep. Mesmerizing.

"Good morning, Tegan," he greeted me brightly with a peculiar half-smile.

"How do you know my name?" I asked, trying to remain as stoic as possible.

"I've been watching you for a while, you and your friend."

The way he said that sent a shiver down my spine, and a plethora of impulses into my mind. You know how when you're really little, and you think if you cover your eyes and can't see anything, nobody can see you? That was what it felt like. I only continued to stare at him.

"I trust you slept well?" he asked, changing the subject like an illusionist switches an object from one hand to the other.

"Why?"

He gave me that peculiar half-smile again. "Now, that's just like you. Most people would start by asking who I am , or how I was watching you, but not you. You, Tegan Elisabeth Young, want to know _why._"

My heart stopped beating at the sound of my middle name. How could he possibly know that? Unless… unless he could see into my head.

Now, ladies and germs, that terrified me! Darn near sent me into a panic, but I wouldn't dare let on. I wasn't about to follow my namesake (being Tegan Jovanka) and scream my head off. And he'd given me the perfect out.

"Thanks, that was my next question. Who are you?"

He gave a graceful bow. "I am the Goblin King."

Taking my cue from Martha, I responded, "Not pompous at all, then."

"You can call me Jareth, if you'd prefer."

"I'd prefer not to address you at all. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather that you take me back!"

"What makes you think I have that power?"

"Well, I'm not the brightest person, but the way I see it, I was on the TARDIS. Then, you were on the TARDIS. Then, I wasn't on the TARDIS. There's gotta be a connection there."

"Well, I can't. You'll have to stay here," he said, and it wasn't that he said it that infuriated me, it was the way he said it. Simply, apathetically, like he didn't care either way. I was a whiny two-year-old who wanted to go meet Barney.

"Yeah, well, not bloody likely," I muttered. "I'll just find my own way out, then."

"But you haven't even looked outside. Here, I've supplied you with a lovely balcony and you haven't bothered to use it!" He stood up, turned his back on me, and shook his head as if he was terribly disappointed in me for being so very inconsiderate.

I sighed, got up, and went to the balcony. My stomach dropped, and all my hopes of escape with it. Sprawled out beneath me, as far as I could see, was an impossibly complicated labyrinth. There was no way I'd ever be able to navigate it on my own.

The Doctor's gotten himself and his companions out of worse situations than this, I told myself, although at the time, I couldn't think of any.

I suddenly remembered that Jareth was still in the room, so I prepared to give the best acting performance of my life and feign confidence that I'd make it out of here. At all.

I turned around, but he was gone, and there was no trace that he'd been there at all. There wasn't even a door. I wanted to curl into a ball and weep for the sheer hopelessness of the situation, but I wouldn't allow myself to.

_WWRD?_ I said to myself. _What Would Rose Do?_

I went to the balcony again to see if there was anything helpful that I might have missed. The labyrinth looked even bigger than before.

With nothing in my room but a bed and a bucket (the less said about the bucket, the better), I had no visible assets. "What I'd give for a banana and a screwdriver," I muttered to myself.

As if by magic, a small glass ball rolled against my feet... and turned into a banana. I sighed, sensing that Jareth was nearby, eavesdropping on my personal conversations with... myself. "Ah ha ha," I said sarcastically. "Where's my screwdriver, then?"

On cue, another glass ball rolled up and became a wooden screwdriver. I picked it up, knocked it against a wall, and said, "Just because it makes a sound, that doesn't make it sonic!"

Not one to waste, I ate the banana, (What? I wanted the banana!), and tried using the screwdriver to chip away at the wall. Didn't make a dent.

Stupid Jareth.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

_The Doctor and I walked into a garden. An ugly little goblin with grey-white hair under a stitched leather cap sang tunelessly, holding a spray can and shuffling around to different plants, mostly small pink climbing roses. _

_Little glowing lights bobbed around the plants. I rubbed my eyes, but the spots remained, so I shook my head to clear it and ignored them._

"'_Scuse me," began the Doctor in his pleasantest voice._

_The goblin looked up at us briefly, his eyes narrowing, and interrupted, "Oh, it's you two."_

"_Well, no publicity is bad publicity," the Doctor said to me confidentially, sticking out his lower lip in thought._

_I tried to look as friendly as he did. I glanced over the goblin's black-shod feet, baggy pants, puffed shirt, and vest. "Can you help us get through this Labyrinth?"_

_The goblin raised his brown eyebrows significantly. _He has a big nose, _I thought. "Hmm!"_

_Suddenly, the light flitted closer, and I realized what was flying 'round. "Fairies!" I exclaimed. My manner can be summed up in one emoticon— _":3_"_

_The goblin raised his can and sprayed. "Fifty-seven! Ugh!" _

_The fairy plummeted. "The poor thing!" I cried, kneeling down to pick it up. It had white hair and an entire handful of transparent wings. To the goblin, I began, "You monst—Ow!" I dropped it. "It bit me!"_

_The Doctor raised an eyebrow. He looked infuriatingly amused. "What did you expect fairies to do?"_

"_I didn't expect anything." I crossed my arms. "I can handle aliens, but I didn't know fairies were real!"_

_The goblin clicked his tongue as he sprayed another fairy. "Shows what you know, don't it? Fifty-eight!"_

_The Doctor sniggered._

"_You're horrible," I shot out._

"_No, I ain't. I'm Hoggle," the goblin Hoggle said._

"_Actually, I was talking to the Doctor." I wrinkled my nose. "He could've warned me."_

_Hoggle nodded. "So he's the Doctor, and who are you?"  
><em>_  
><em>_"Grace Anscombe."_

_The Doctor gave me a piercing look._

"_I mean, Garace," I amended, "…depending on whom you ask."_

_Hoggle sprayed another fairy. "That's what I thought. Fifty-nine!"_

"_Do you know where the door to the Labyrinth is?" I asked, realizing how much time we'd wasted. We weren't even inside!_

"_Maybe," Hoggle replied._

_I waited. And waited. "Well, go on, then."_

"_Oh, you little pest," said Hoggle. I started to be offended until he sprayed another fairy. "Sixty!"_

"_So where is it?" I said impatiently._

"_Where is what?" Hoggle returned evenly._

"_The door!"_

"_What door?"_

_I abruptly turned to the Doctor, who was studying us with his head cocked. "Doctor," I began, holding my anger in check (or so I thought), "after thorough examination, I have come to the conclusion that he's hopeless. Let's ask the biting fairies if _they_ know where the door is."_

"_No," he said thoughtfully, then drew it out: "Noooo. That's the wrong question. Hoggle—" he bent toward the gardening goblin—"how do we get into the Labyrinth?"_

"_Ah!" the goblin said expansively. "Now _that's_ more like it. You gets in there." _

_Hoggle pointed to a rose-covered wall a few feet away, and suddenly it opened in the middle. The three of us walked over to this sudden door, but when I looked down either side, there were only two passages, left and right. They were both grey walls, slanted outward and littered with dead branches and trees, scattered rocks, cobwebs, and debris on the ground._

_Hoggle stared at the trashed, equally unappealing sights. "You really going in there, are you?"_

"_Yes," I said, trying not to sound like a noble martyr. "We have to." _

_Hoggle jumped in our faces (yes, I did yell, "Ah!") with the startling cry, "Cozy, isn't it?" _

"_Oh, stop it," I said, my heart pounding._

_Hoggle chortled. "Now, would you go left or right?"_

_Before the Doctor could answer, I blurted on, "They look the same."_

"_You're not going to get very far," Hoggle told me, contempt in his eyes. "What does the clever one have to say, eh?"_

_Ignoring my embarrassment, the Doctor replied calmly, "How would you go?"_

"_Me?" This seemed to amuse Hoggle. "I wouldn't go either way."_

"_I _said_ we should have asked the fairies before he sprayed them all," I moaned._

"_You know your problem?" Hoggle snapped at me. "You take too much for granted. Take this Labyrinth. Even if you reach the center, you'll never get out again."_

_"For your information," I said with dignity, "once we get my friend Tegan we'll be able to use the TARDIS, so there." I stuck out my tongue extremely childishly. "But I suppose _you_ don't know what that means!"_

"_Both of you behave," the Doctor said warily, taking me by the head. "We're going now."_

"_Thanks for nothing, Hogwart," I scathed._

"_It's Hoggle!" Hoggle cried, nettled. "And don't say I didn't warn you." _

_The ugly face printed on the back of his vest was our last farewell before the door slammed behind us._

_I suspected the Doctor chose a direction at random. First we strode; then we started to run. I squinted down the passage. "Why do they call this a Labyrinth? Can _you_ see any turns or corners from here?" I stopped and held out my arms. "This just goes on and on."_

_"Discouraged already? I expected more," the Doctor said, also reluctantly stopping to look around. His tone was playful, but I felt guilty. "Maybe it doesn't go on and on. There might be something in what Hoggle said—Jareth deals a lot in fulfilling what a person believes."_

_I truly wanted to help. "So… you think we're taking it for granted that it goes on and on?"_

"'_Allo," interrupted a piping voice. _

_I jumped to see a large blue worm, with a beige belly and almost human face, clinging to the craggy wall. Three tufts of blue hair sprouted from its head, and it wore a red scarf.  
>"A worm just said hello to us?"<em>

"_I believe it did," said the Doctor. _

_The worm swiveled. "Actually, I said 'allo, but that's close enough."_

_I laughed, and the Doctor grinned. "And how are you this less-than-fine day?"_

"_I'm very well, thank you," the worm responded primly._

_The Doctor leaned toward me and said lowly, "You know, if this worm can talk, it's probably extremely intelligent. We ought to…"_

_I was already feeling guilty for my rudeness to Hoggle and wanted to make it up. "Right, right, I'll ask." I straightened, putting on my best saleswoman voice. "Guess what, my good sir? By dint of existing and our running into you, you have just won the fantastic opportunity to help us through this Labyrinth! Ta-da!" I grinned, dropping the act._

_"Know the way?"_

"_No," said the worm. "I'm just a worm."_

"_Oh," said the Doctor._

"_Come and meet the missus," the worm grinned, and the only thing more charming was the Doctor's return grin._

"_Thank you, we'd love to, but we have to solve this Labyrinth in thirteen hours without turns or openings, and that tends to take time."_

_"It's full of openings," the worm snorted, "just you ain't seein' them. There's one right in front of you."_

_I blinked several times at the wall. "Maybe I need new glasses."_

_"Come inside and have some tea," the worm urged again._

"_Is your house bigger on the inside?" I asked, amused._

"_Sorry, no time for tea today," the Doctor said smoothly. "Are you sure there's an opening?"_

"_Of course there is," the worm sighed. "Try walkin' through it; you'll see what I mean."_

_"That's just wall," the Doctor said, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "There's no way through."_

"_Things aren't always what they seem. Like the young lady tolja, you can't take anything for granted."_

_I held out my hands and walked toward the wall, bracing myself to hit it—but I kept walking, past the place my eyes told me I should have run into something. It was an optical illusion._

_I leapt back and squealed. "Whoa!"_

_The Doctor strode up where I'd left off. "Would you look at that? The depth perception is funny. This wall is set farther back!"_

"_Hey, hang on!" cried the worm. _

"_Thank you," the Doctor told it, smiling. "That was incredibly helpful."_

"_But don't go that way! Never go _that_ way." If the worm had had arms, I suspect it would have crossed them._

"_Just a worm? You're brilliant, you are," the Doctor said appreciatively. "Thanks for everything."_

_I poked my head down the way the worm had advised us not to go. It looked like a straight shot to the castle, but looks could be deceiving. Still… "Are you sure that's the—" _

"_Hop along, Garace," the Doctor interrupted, already down the other way._

_I shrugged to the worm. "Like he said, thank you. Say hi to the missus for us." _

_The worm nodded and squirmed back into the wall. I sighed and sprinted after the Doctor. "We're coming, Tegan…"_

"_Hansel and Gretel," the Doctor said. "We ought to mark a path. Aaaand…" He fished around in his dimensionally transcendental coat pockets. "Aha! Sidewalk chalk. Swiped i… Er, got it from the Sidewalk Chalk Guy himself."_

"_That must have made a mess in your pockets," I said as he bent down and made a sky blue arrow in the direction he'd chosen._

_The walls became bigger blocks of lighter stone instead of dreary grey brick. Every so often we'd see a post with a round top like the head of a bed. The cobblestones were cleaner. We continued to mark them with arrows._

_At the top of a flight of stairs, we pointed an arrow to the left, but once we walked down, it was a dead end. When we turned back, the arrow was pointing down the steps instead._

"_Just ducky," groaned the Doctor. "Someone's changed our marks."_

_I tried not to pout, hating how petulant I sounded—but the words were already out: "I _hate_ this place!"_

"_That's only half of it," said a voice._

_The Doctor and I turned around to see that the former dead end was now two doors guarded by four whiskered goblins with lion-like faces and ears that reminded me of croissants. They were placed behind shields like face cards: two with their heads up, and two with their heads down, one set blue and one red. They wore pied hats with spikes on the top. Feet with non-matching striped socks and hands with terrible nails stuck out at odd intervals. _

"_This was a dead end a minute ago!" the Doctor exclaimed. "What have you done?"_

"_No, that's the dead end behind you," cackled the one on the bottom of the blue shield, which in paint labeled him Tim._

_I looked over my shoulder and saw Tim was right—two "bedposts" had now met, blocking the way. The guards laughed at us._

So it's not enough that it's a Labyrinth: It has to keep changing, _I thought, and was immediately glad I hadn't complained aloud. "What should we do?"_

"_Try one of these doors," Jim, the one underneath the red shield, said. _

"_One of them leads to the castle," Tim added, "and the other one leads to—"_

"_Ba ba ba bum!" Ralph,__the head sticking out the top of the red shield, drum-rolled._

"_Certain death!" Tim finished rather grandly. The guards all oohed, completing the effect._

_The Doctor looked from Tim to Ralph and popped the air in his cheeks. "The only sensible thing is to ask which is which. Well, boys?" _

"_We can't tell you," said Jim._

_I put my fists on my hips. "And why not?"_

_Jim blinked. "Uh… I, uh… We don't know."_

_I threw up my hands. "What do we expect from these Muppets?"_

_The Doctor seemed to take this as a personal affront. "Don't bash the Muppets, Garace. I quite like the Muppets."_

"_But they do know," continued Tim, indicating Ralph above Jim and the head above himself, labeled Alph._

"_Except you can only ask one of us," Alph said._

"_It's in the rules," said Ralph. "One of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies. _He _always lies."_

"_I do not!" Alph cried. "I tell the truth!"_

"_Oh, what a lie!" scathed Ralph. "Shameful!"_

_Tim guffawed as Alph reiterated, "He's the liar!"_

"_When I unhelpfully but truthfully mentioned that I hate this place," I began slowly, "did I say that I also hate Jareth's rules? 'Cause I do. Increasingly."_

_The Doctor shook his head, smirking. "I know this one, Garace! All right, you lot, settle down."_

_The four looked attentive and self-satisfied. The Doctor pointed from Alph to Ralph and back again, and I heard him mutter, "Eeny meeny miney moe…" It was great to know such logical hands held Tegan's future._

_The Doctor's finger stopped. "All right, you. Alph, answer yes or no. Would _he—" _nodding at Ralph—"tell me that _your_ door leads to the castle?"_

"_Uh…" Alph looked to his buddies for support. "What do you think?" They huddled up and whispered. "Really?" _

_Alph emerged. "Yes."_

"_The other door leads to the castle, and this door leads to certain death," the Doctor announced, crossing his arms with half a smile._

"_He could be telling the truth," Alph said immediately, wary of how sure the Doctor was._

"_Oh! I get it!" I clapped my hands. "The Doctor's right, 'cause if Ralph told the truth, you wouldn't, so if he said yes, the answer is no!"_

_The Doctor beamed._

"_And what if _I'm_ telling the truth?" Alph said, looking a little desperate._

"_Then he'd be lying, and the answer would still be no!" I felt intoxicated by such wisdom._

_Alph looked at Ralph. "Is that right?"_

_Ralph shrugged. "I dunno. I've never understood it."_

_I felt a surge of pride and loyalty for my Doctor. "Don't feel too bad. The Doctor is supernatural at untangling these things."_

"_Weeeeell, yes," the Doctor said oh-so-humbly. He rapped his temple with two fingers. "It's a piece of cake."_

_We strode through Ralph's door, our heads held high._

_And—if it had ever been there—the ground promptly fell out from beneath us. "Help!" I shrieked._

_Something—things, other than the Doctor—pressed against me, grasping and holding my clothes. They squeezed me painfully; I could feel bruises blooming as we were caught to a stop._

"_What do you mean, 'help'?" said a voice._

"_We _are_ helping," said another._

"_We're helping hands."_

_My eyes adjusted to the dimness of the shaft, and I saw it was lined with hundreds and hundreds of disembodied, clay-colored, ever-shifting hands holding the Doctor and me with viselike grip. I tried to calm down, tried not to be a wimp, tried not to hold the Doctor's coat so tightly, but he must have seen my face. _

"_You're hurting her!" His voice was angry. _

"_Would you like us to let go?" said a wickedly sassy voice. I held my breath._

_The Doctor hesitated. "No. Sorry, Garace."_

_I breathed out and found, to my relief, that I wasn't going to hyperventilate. The firmness of the hands loosened just a tad. "It's okay. I can handle it now."_

"_Come on then. Which way?" said an impatient voice. The hands linked to form faces like shadow puppets whenever they wanted to speak._

"_Up or down?"_

"_We don't have all day."_

"_Somewhere to be?" the Doctor asked sarcastically._

"_It _is_ a big decision," said a more sympathetic voice._

"_Which way do you want to go, hmm?"_

"_Yes, which way?"_

_I wanted to cover my ears. The Doctor took _my_ hand in his. "Well, since we're pointed that way—and I've always loved a good fall…" I could hear "The Impossible Planet" excitement in his voice. "…Down."_

_"Ohhhh ho ho," a voice trembled with anticipation._

"_He chose down!" one chuckled._

_One poked my back. "_They_ chose down," another hand corrected gravely. _

_I swallowed, holding the Doctor's hand tighter. His was the only one I could trust. "Was that wrong?"_

"_Too late now!" they chorused. Laughing._

_We yelled the entire way down._

,.,.,.,.,.,.,

I'd long since given up on digging my way out with a screwdriver when Jareth came back. He was furious.

Not knowing him or why he'd brought me here in the first place, this frightened me more than I already was. However, once again, I decided the Doctor's way was best. Never mind the fact that I am neither brilliant nor a Time Lord. "Ooh, somebody's incensed. Might I ask why?"

And he gave me this look as if I'd caught the Black Death, given it to him, and walked away with nary a scratch. And I'd been thinking... _I disappeared from inside a closet, so Grace will have noticed that I'm missing and will have told the Doctor, who would insist on searching for me. _And given Jareth's "You brought this here" glare, presumably, that was exactly what happened.

"The Doctor's here, isn't he? And I can conclude from the cheerful expression on your face that he's on the right track." I didn't even attempt to hide the grin that began to spread across my face.

Jareth continued his glare for a moment, then shrugged indifferently and turned away. "No matter. The dwarf will soon lead them back to the beginning."

"Dwarf?" I questioned, feeling like the Eleventh Doctor; I'd missed something big.

"Yes. Hedgewart, or something to that effect."

"Right." I decided not to dwell on this just now.

He turned suddenly and cocked his head slightly, studying me. It was very unsettling. "How long have you been traveling with the Doctor?" He pronounced "the Doctor" as if he didn't believe the title.

I hesitated. I knew where he was going with this. He was going to say that because we hadn't been traveling with him for long, the Doctor wouldn't stick his neck out for us. He clearly didn't know the Doctor.

"It doesn't matter how long we've been traveling," I said finally. "He'd go as far to protect a complete stranger as he would any of his companions."

"Well, yes, he's proved that thousands of times," Jareth said. "But his... _companions_... they're different, somehow. He goes to the edge of the universe for them."

"Yes, he does," I murmured.

"I wonder what makes them so different. So much more_ important._"

I'd never thought of it that way. I'd always loved how protective the Doctor is over his companions. And I began to realize that Jareth, in a small way, was right. If some random person was taken by aliens, of course, the Doctor would try to find a way to save them. But if it was one of his companions... well, it was like Jareth said. He'd go to the edges of the universe.

And I began to wonder, was I worthy of that? The Doctor once said he only took the best and the brightest, and that was an awful lot to live up to.

_Stop that!_ I shook my head, as if trying to clear away the thoughts. If the Doctor didn't think we were the best and brightest, he'd have dropped us by now. I got up, and got as much in Jareth's face as my short stature would allow. "I'm not sure what makes_ us_ so special. But it should make you _very worried_."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

_I had one explanation for my situation: the Doctor had landed on me._

"_Oof. Oh, I'm sorry!" said a voice that sounded distant. A weight lifted, and the Doctor loomed over me in the single shaft of light, hauling me to my feet. "Still three-dimensional—that's good."_

_I swayed woozily and realized I couldn't see a thing but his face in the light from the slats of the closed trapdoor. _

"_I hear footsteps," the Doctor said, tensing around me. "Who's there?"_

"_Me," grunted a familiar voice. A match sizzled to life, and a short figure lit a candle that illuminated the entire room. Chains and cobwebs hung from the craggy, rough-hewn walls and ceiling, but the stone sparkled. _

_I recognized Hoggle from the beginning of the Labyrinth, apparently here before us. "Oh, you."_

_You have to understand how very menacing my two words must have been to Hoggle. I was dirty, very unimpressed, scared to death if I would admit it, and probably looked sort of fearsome._

_Hoggle shuffled his feet. "Oh, yes, well…"_

_I leaned closer to the Doctor. "Look at his shifty eyes."_

"_Not the best sort to hang around," the Doctor agreed. Louder, he said, "What are you doing here?"_

"_I… knew you were going to get into trouble… so I've come to give you a hand."_

"_I'm afraid you're too late for that," the Doctor said without much humor. "The helping hands dumped us here without doors."_

"_Oh, you've already looked around?" Hoggle sounded nervous. "You have to have noticed there's only the hole. This is an oubliette. Labyrinth's full of them."_

"_Which you couldn't have mentioned sooner," the Doctor sighed._

"_You didn't even know what an oubliette is," Hoggle said._

"_Actually, I do." The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair; apparently the knowledge didn't make things any easier. "It's a place you put people to forget about them—that's literally what the word means in French."_

"_Have you ever gotten out of one before?" I asked. I wouldn't have put it past him._

"_If you're interested in getting out," Hoggle interrupted, "I know a shortcut out of the Labyrinth."_

_I shot a look at the Doctor, appalled. "No way, we can't!"_

_The Doctor stared Hoggle down. "If you think for a second we'll leave Tegan after coming so far…"_

"_Far?" Hoggle barked a laugh. "It gets a lot worse from here on in."_

_I stopped short._ "Since when do you care about us?"

"_Uh… what?" Hoggle blinked. "Oh, oh! Well, I do, that's all."_

"_Right," said the Doctor in perfectly affected sarcasm._

"_Nice young girl, terrible black oubliette," Hoggle continued, ignoring the Doctor to appeal to me._

"_So what you're saying is that you aren't worried about the Doctor at all. He's 'the clever one.' And he was much nicer to you than I was."_

_Hoggle looked uncomfortable at these astute observations, as if a Telly Tubby could have bought his story for a second._

_The Doctor snapped his fingers, and I saw his eyes narrow. "You're a goblin, and you like treasure. Treasure… Do you like jewelry?"_

"_Why?" Hoggle asked abruptly._

_"If you help us solve the Labyrinth, Garace'll give you her bracelet." He yanked my arm over, nearly toppling me, to show Hoggle the plastic bracelet on my wrist._

"_This isn't mine, actually," I whispered. "It's from the TARDIS wardrobe, but if you don't care—"_

"_Like I'd ever wear it," he said, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, Hoggle boy. You like it, don't you?"_

"_Uh… so-so."_

"_So-so?" the Doctor snorted. "This is bone fide green plastic!"_

"_It's all right, Doctor," I said airily, slowly rotating the hand with the bracelet as if waving Hoggle aside. "We'll find our own way, just the way we've always done."  
><em>

_Hoggle spoke so quickly it was like one word. "You-give-me-the-bracelet-and-I'll-show-you-the-way-out."  
><em>

_"That's no good." I shrugged carelessly. "We don't want the way out." I started to walk toward a wall, giving him a Queen Elizabeth wave. "Goodbye, Hoggle…"_

_Hoggle hesitated, licking his lips. "You said it's plastic?"_

"_Almighty TARDIS plastic." The Doctor mysteriously raised an eyebrow._

"_Oohhh…" Hoggle's eyes flickered longingly over my hand. "I don't promise nothing, but I'll take you as far as I can! Then you two're on your own, right?"_

"_Right," said the Doctor magnanimously, sliding the bracelet off my wrist with a wink that made me glow for having helped._

"_Cor! Plastic," Hoggle said in an awed tone, putting it on. Then he walked over to one of the walls and whipped a canvas off the floor. A cloud of dust rose. "Ah da dum…" He picked up a sheet of wood that probably came up to my collarbone and set it against the wall; I heard it attach, and when he opened it, a mop and bucket fell out with a clatter._

"_Oh!" Hoggle said sheepishly, kicking the bucket aside. "Broom closet! Well, can't be right all the time…" He closed the door and opened it from the other side—this time, white light spilled out._

"_I'd absolutely love to stay and check out how that works," said the Doctor wistfully._

"_This is it," Hoggle announced, walking through. "Come on, then." He laughed as we ducked in behind him. "This way."_

_The shaft widened, a twisting cave, and we followed Hoggle. "Don't go on," said a face in the rock. Sand poured out of its mouth. The deep, hollow voice rolled over me, making me shudder despite myself. "Go back while you still can. This is not the way!"_

"_Not the way to what?" I asked. My voice came out cool, which pleased me._

"_Good point," said the Doctor. "Not the way to one place is always the way to another."_

"_Uh…" The rockface trailed off, and another pretended we'd begged it for more advice instead of questioned its tactics. _

_"Take heed and go no further. Beware! Beware! Soon it will all be too late!"_

_"Ignore them," Hoggle groaned. "They're just false alarms. You get them in the Labyrinth, especially when you're on the right track."_

_"Oh, no, you're not," yet another rockface retorted with obvious satisfaction._

_"Oh, shut up!" Hoggle snarled._

_"Sorry, just doing my job."_

_"Beware, for the—"_

_"Just forget it!" Hoggle said._

_This rockface's face fell. Its eyes (balls of rock with holes for pupils) dropped. "Oh, please, I haven't said it for such a long time." _

_I raised an eyebrow. Its accent reminded me of the Abzorbaloff. _

_"Oh," I sighed, "go ahead and let him say it, if we can just get out of here."_

_The Doctor's eyes lit up. (_The worse it gets, the more he loves it, _I thought.) "This'll be good."_

_"Don't expect a big reaction," Hoggle said._

_"No, no, no, of course not." The rockface must have had a throat, because it cleared it. "For the path you take will lead to certain destruction!"_

_The Doctor deflated in obvious disappointment. "As if I've never heard that one before."_

_"I warned you," Hoggle said._

_"Thank you anyway," said the rockface humbly._

"_You're welcome," I returned. "Everyone loves a buzz kill."_

_Then something rolled over my feet. I froze, thinking it was a rat, but when I looked down, it was a crystal. I got the feeling that that might be even worse._

_The crystal rolled past us and up to a figure I hadn't seen before—a hunched, beaky goblin beggar in a cloak and a cocked pirate hat. The crystal leapt into his begging cup._

"_What have we here?" the goblin croaked._

"_Ah, nothing." Hoggle's voice was less than firm, but not too suspicious._

"_Nothing, Hedgewart?" _

_The beggar suddenly stood and uncloaked, much taller than he should have been. But when he whipped off the cloak, his beaky face and hat fell away too, revealing a thin, tallish man. _He wore a red-brown leather coat that lay longer in the back (almost to his feet) over a lacy, ruffled shirt. On the bared part of his chest lay a gold necklace set with a piece of some kind of quartz.__

_"Uh oh," said the Doctor. "Goblin King."_

"That's _him? He looks like—David Bowie!" I exclaimed. Truly, right down to the almost feminine legs in grey leggings and tall boots, that is who he struck me as._

"_Some people say I look like a British David too," the Doctor said absentmindedly, busy staring the man—Jareth, the Goblin King—down. _

"_Do they?" I asked, scrabbling for a response. Then I realized he hadn't named which David, so I didn't have to remark on the resemblance. _

_Jareth pulled out a crystal, rolling it around his palms—and suddenly it transformed into a snake wound between his fingers. "Doctor, don't defy me." Jareth's voice was like silk. "You're no match for me."_

_The Doctor looked on evenly. "I was once. I've changed my face, but not my brilliance."_

_Jareth threw the snake at the Doctor. I clapped my hands over a scream as it hit his face—but it fluttered away as a scarf. An ordinary scarf that Jareth caught in midair and balled up. When he opened his black-gloved hands, it was a clear, round crystal again._

_I shuddered._

"_Your majesty!" Hoggle interrupted, looking as if he'd rather brave a hungry dragon. "What a nice—er—surprise!"_

_Jareth ignored him and turned to me. "Turn back, Grace, before it's too late."_

It's never too late,_ said a little voice in my head. I squared my shoulders. "Don't drag me into your vendetta. I just want my friend. Tegan, remember her? You kidnapped her off the TARDIS?"_

_Jareth sneered (actually, it might've been a smile, but it was hard to tell). "Surely the Doctor told you the rules. I can't take anyone unless they want to be taken."_

What? _I thought. He was right: the Doctor _had _said this before, but I hadn't taken it in. Why would Tegan have wanted to leave? Weren't we having the times of our lives?_

_"I've watched you over eight hundred years," Jareth told the Doctor, "and I've seen how they always leave you in the end. You always end up alone, Doctor, from Susan to Rose. Why should Tegan be any different?"_

_Changing the subject before the Doctor could respond, not that he would have, Jareth glanced sidelong down at Hoggle. "Ah."__His colorless lips in an equally pale, sickly looking face curled caustically in distaste. "Or was it Hogwart?"_

"_Hoggle," Hoggle corrected._

"_Hoggle, are you helping these intruders?" Jareth asked, sounding actually cheerful. Hoggle quailed. _

_When Jareth said this, I realized for the first time what gall he must have to crown himself king of a prison, to make it a domain that someone else could intrude upon. As if he owned it. As if he'd chosen to be there. He was defying the Doctor, not vice versa._

"_H-h-helping?" Hoggle stuttered. "In what sense?"_

"_In the sense of leading them towards the castle," Jareth said in an off-hand manner, kneeling beside Hoggle. "Toward Tegan." He inclined his head toward Hoggle as if listening to excuses. _

"_Don't even say her name," the Doctor glowered._

"_I was taking them back to the beginning!" Hoggle suddenly yelped._

"What?" _I screeched, my ears ringing with the Doctor's same cry._

"_I told them I would help them. A little trickery," Hoggle groveled. I suddenly loathed every wrinkle on his face as if they were cliffs holding me captive. "Just obeying your or—" _

_Jareth's voice dropped, interrupting imperiously, "What is that plastic thing 'round your wrist?"_

_Hoggle's arm swung around behind his back, as if he hoped Jareth would forget about it if he couldn't see it. It soon became apparent that this would not work, so he brought his arm forward and examined it suspiciously. "Oh. Oh, this! Oh, my goodness, where did this come from?"_

_If I hadn't been furious with him (and vindictively pleased to see my bracelet), I would have facepalmed. The Doctor rolled his eyes._

_I wouldn't have known Jareth was angry too if his voice hadn't become so clipped. "If I thought _for one second_ you were betraying me, I'd be forced to suspend you headfirst in the Bog of Eternal Stench."_

_I heard a badly suppressed snicker and realized it was the Doctor's. Despite that, Hoggle cried out in evident horror, "No, your majesty! Not the Eternal Stench!"_

"_Oh, yes, Hoggle! And you, Other Companion." He bent down to look me in the eye. "How do you like my Labyrinth?"_

_"Leave Garace_ alone_," the Doctor said quietly._

_Jareth's blue eyes, overshadowed by slanting white outlined in black, never left me. "Let him speak for you if you must. You don't really know how you like my Labyrinth, do you? He's done all the work. You just follow-the-leader like an idolatrous puppy and wag your tail when he solves the riddles."_

_My face burned, and I dropped my eyes to the crystal he was bouncing between his fingers. The odd thing was, he didn't seem to be trying to provoke me. He was stating a fact, and he was right._

"_That's enough," said the Doctor more loudly._

_The Goblin King just cocked his head at him. "Bright and shining Martha is safely stranded. Clever and witty Tegan—I stole her away." He lifted his thin lips in a cruel smile. "You don't even know this girl's proper name. What does she do for you? Raise your self-esteem?" He patted my head. "Good doggy. Want a treat?"_

_I _had_ to say something. "I can bite, too."_

"_But her growl is worse," Jareth laughed._

"_Garace, don't!" The Doctor reached out to stop my socking Jareth, but I was already flying at him. _

"_Ohhh…."Hoggle was moaning sickeningly in shock and distress, but I didn't care a mite about him. I fully intended to hit Jareth and delight in it. _

_Jareth caught my wrist in both hands before my fist cracked against his jaw, but he had to drop his crystal to do it. It broke noisily. For the first time, he really lost his composure, and his silken voice stretched taut. "Do you really want to face my Labyrinth without your master to whistle for you?" he hissed, his hot breath in my face. _

_I twisted my wrist, trying to loosen his grip, without success. "You keep making this about the Labyrinth!" I was breathing hard. "I don't _care_ about the Labyrinth! I just want _my friend!"

"_You use those two words so often," Jareth said in a tone of mock wonder. _

_Another hand closed over my wrist: the Doctor's. He worked his fingers between Jareth's. "Let. Go."_

_Jareth's and the Doctor's fingers lifted one after another, in a wave. My whole body relaxed, and I realized that the Goblin King had pulled me up on my tiptoes._

"_I don't think you two have quite appreciated the Labyrinth until now," Jareth said, falling back on the tried-and-true villain stratagem: when you lose face before the hero, send in your goons. "Let's up the stakes."_

_The self-proclaimed Goblin King waved his hands like a blossoming flower, and a new, unbroken sphere appeared between his fingers. For a moment, it reflected something in the passage behind us. Then he waltzed to the side of the tunnel and vanished like blinking, no smoke, no sparkle, no fading, no trace._

_I heard whirring and looked over my shoulder to see a death machine. "Oh, no!" moaned Hoggle. "The cleaners!"_

_A whirling drill of spikes chugged toward us, taking up the entire tunnel. It grabbed cobwebs off the walls with such ferocity I didn't dare to imagine my flesh there. No one even had to shout "run" before we took off in the opposite direction._

_Hoggle tripped and nearly sprawled. Reflexively, I caught his arm and hauled him back to his feet. "You okay?"_

_He just panted._

"_Faster!" cried the Doctor—already miles ahead. "Hoggle, don't slow us down! Hurry, there's a side passage here!"_

_Suddenly I lost sight of him, but I heard his voice. "Garace?" _

"_Doctor? Where are you?" I gasped, because I realized what had happened—he had entered a passage that had closed behind him. I came up to the wall I had last seen him at and pounded. _

"_Just run, girl!" Hoggle barked._

"_I'll find you at the surface!" the Doctor yelled. I lost all sense of direction from his voice._

_,.,.,.,.,.,.,._

I couldn't bear the silence.

The unending, unceasing, almost deafening silence.

I never realized how noisy our world is, with cars going by, ticking clocks, the secure rumbling of a furnace or the light whirring of a fan or air conditioner.

Even outdoors, away from artificial noises, there's never _true _silence. Birds singing, wind blowing, brooks rippling gently, varying insects buzzing irritatingly.

But not here.

_There must not be a single living thing in this whole, stupid labyrinth, _I thought to myself. _Nothing could be this quiet.  
><em>Well, except that dwarf Jareth mentioned. Hedgehog?

And what _exactly _did he mean by "Goblin King"? Surely there was no such thing as a goblin.

I mean, if there's no Noddy, there are probably no goblins. Probably.

Besides, if there were goblins, they'd be making noise like singing 80s' dance music, or tossing babies ten feet in the air. You know, stuff I'd hear.

Besides the silence, there was the boredom. Like I said earlier, he'd only given me a bed, a bucket, a banana peel, and a screwdriver. And McGyver, I wasn't! Well, I'm still not, but that's beside the point.

No books, nothing to write with, the screwdriver wouldn't even dent the wall. I think he really wanted me to sleep, 'cause there was just nothing else to do. And, of course, I wasn't going to do that. I'm not that stupid! Stupid enough to follow a rock star into a closet, but not stupid enough to fall asleep!

At this moment, I was staring at the bedpost, trying to see if I could identify what kind of wood it was. Not that I know anything about wood, but it was a way to kill time. I made a note to apologize to the Doctor for that. If, that was, I ever saw him again.

Sorry if this is a little incoherent, but this is genuinely how I was thinking after being left alone in a room for hours.

Anyhow, it was because I was bored enough to stare at the bedpost that I noticed the screws that were holding it to the wall. And I thought, _Why is a bed screwed to the wall? With the most ordinary looking screws? What is Jareth hiding?_

I jumped off the bed and lay face down on the ground, trying to see if there was anything under the bed. The bed was close enough to the wall that I couldn't see very far underneath it. I'd have to unscrew the bed.

Ah, well, it was something to do. Lucky for me, he'd just given me a screwdriver. Take that, Jareth.

The diverting task of unscrewing was over far too quickly (you can see how far I'd deteriorated as a human being), and I pulled the bed as hard as I could.

Sure enough, there was a trap door. Where it went, I didn't care. I grabbed the screwdriver, which I'd named Lars about an hour earlier, opened the door, and jumped through.

I was a desperate, desperate woman.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

_The cleaners were gaining, the Doctor was gone, and I suddenly saw that we had nowhere else to run. We had come to a barred end that Hoggle was shaking with all his might. _

_I tried to help him, but it was stuck fast. "What I wouldn't give for the sonic! Let's try the Doctor's wall again!"_

_Hoggle and I beat against it. "Oh!" he spat. "The cleaners, the Bog of Stench! Your friend sure got his attention!"_

_The cleaners closed in, shaking the tunnel. And the wall collapsed underneath us._

_I coughed in the dust on the ground, suddenly filled with well-being for everyone in the universe. I was alive. Hoggle was alive. We had gotten through, and—_

_No Doctor._

_I stood up to look around properly. Over my shoulder, I watched the cleaners pass us, goblins pumping in the caboose. In front of us, a ladder went up to the surface. No Doctor. _

"_This is what we need—a ladder," said Hoggle, taking hold and pulling himself up. "Follow me."_

_I hesitated with my foot on the bottom rung. "I can't trust you. You were taking us back the beginning!"_

"_I wasn't. I told him that to throw him off the scent."  
><em>

_I gave a short, bitter laugh. "Why should I believe that?"_

_Hoggle shook his head at me wisely. "Let me put it this way. What choice do you have?"_

_I stuck out my tongue. "Ugh, a taste of the Doctor's medicine. You're right." I started to climb after him. _

"_See, you have to understand my position. I'm a coward, and Jareth scares me," he said to me over his shoulder._

"_What kind of position is that?" I cried—then cried out again as a rung broke under Hoggle's foot and fell. I would give that step a wide berth. _

"_No position. That's my point." _

"_It's not as if he's repaid you for your slobbery." I shook my head and thanked God I wasn't afraid of heights. "In the end he just left you for the cleaners too."_

"_That's neither here nor there. You wouldn't be so brave if you'd ever smelled the Bog of Eternal Stench."_

"_But I am brave, and that's the main point. Besides, what's so bad about this Bog? Afraid of a little mud?"_

_He rolled his eyes. "Did you hear the rest? _Eternal Stench._ It's, it's, it's—yuck!"_

"_It just smells?" I said in a flat tone._

"_Believe me, that's enough." He shivered. "But the worst thing is, if you put so much as a toe in the Bog of Stench, you'll smell bad the rest of your life. It'll never wash off."_

"_Ergo 'Eternal,'" I muttered. "I get it now."_

_Hoggle pushed his head out and breathed deeply. "Ahh!"_

_I swung my legs out the moment he was out of sight. We had come out of a giant urn back into the Labyrinth._

_The entire time climbing, I'd pictured the Doctor at the top of the ladder, ready to pull me out. But I was wrong. All I saw were Ireland-green hedges and statues of people about various tasks—a soldier, a woman with a rolling pin._

"_Here we are, then," said Hoggle. "You're on your own from now on."_

"_Wait, what?" I gasped. "But—I need you! I can't do this alone!"_

_He shrugged and started to walk away._

"_Don't you dare quit and leave me, Hoggle!"_

"_I said I'd take you as far as I could," he said, looking away determinedly._

"_You didn't take me anywhere. You wouldn't be here now if not for the cleaners, you nasty little cheat," I hissed, much like Gollum._

_He held up his hands. "Now, don't try to embarrass me. I've got no pride."_

_The Doctor could have persuaded him. But I had no Doctor, just myself._

All right, don't panic. I'm not Adric,_ I told myself. _Donna would stick up for herself. She would…

_"Oh, yeah?" I snatched the cloth pouch hanging from his waist like a fanny pack and rattled it, hearing the jewels clinking inside. Others key-chained to the outside swung around, spots of colored light._

_Hoggle grabbed for them, and I raised the pouch above his head. He jumped for it like a pathetic two-year-old. "But them's my jewels! Oh, you, give them back! Oh, give those back to me!"_

_As I danced around him, still dangling his jewels, I looked around. On my distant right was the castle. I pointed. "There's Tegan's prison. Which way should we _two _try?"_

"_Them's my rightful property!" Hoggle wailed, giving up on the jumping thing (which really wasn't working out). "It's not fair!"_

"_No, it isn't!" I said blithely. "Boo hoo for you."_

"_Ohhh," said an aged voice. I turned to see a heap of pieced-together robes climb into a stone seat and realized that a face lived underneath. This face sported a flabby nose, long white mustaches, and foggy round spectacles that weren't on the eyes but on the head. _

_The other thing on his head was yet more interesting. I suppose I can get away with calling it a hat, but for all the world it looked like a long-necked bird with a large black beak, yellow eyes, and a few red plumes._

"_Hmm? Cor!" Hoggle jumped. (I didn't. I was getting used to this.)_

_The wise-looking man ignored Hoggle, drumming his long fingers. "Oh! A young girl!"_

"_Whoo hoo hoo!" hooted his hat. I blushed._

"_Who's the other one?" asked the Wiseman, waving dismissively at Hoggle. Simultaneously, he held his hand out—I assumed to shake mine, but he kissed it instead._

"_That's my friend Hoggle," I answered, distracted by the sudden attention._

"_I've never been anyone's friend before," Hoggle interrupted, sounding puzzled._

_I looked down at his sparsely-populated head. "You're not much of one either, but you're still here, aren't you?"_

_Granted, I had his most treasured possessions, but Hoggle didn't bring that up. He just stared off into the distance and mumbled to himself, "…I like that…"_

_I felt myself soften toward the little fellow, who had never had one friend. Ever. Even the _Master_ couldn't claim that!_

"_What can I do for you?" asked the Wiseman._

"_So what do you—" said his hat. The Wiseman coughed to shut it up, and the hat looked sullen._

"_We have to get to the castle at the center of the Labyrinth," I recited. "Do you know the way?"_

"_Ah," said the Wiseman._

"_Eh?" said the hat._

"_Oh, yes. Huh," said the Wiseman. "You want to get to the castle?"_

"_How's that for brainpower?" sniggered the hat (I couldn't help agreeing)._

"_Don't make me shush you again!" snapped the Wiseman, to which the hat replied, "Aw, nuts."_

_The Wiseman cleared his throat, well, wisely. "So, young woman, the way forward is sometimes the way back."_

_I looked the way we'd come. It made sense in a Labyrinth to have to twist around, but that wasn't really the kind of answer I'd wanted. "Actually, I meant direct—"_

_Hoggle snorted. "Are you actually going to listen to this dung?" _

"_Will you please be quiet?" the Wiseman sniffed._

"_C'mon, let him talk!" the hat said, looking delighted._

"_PLEASE?" asked the Wiseman quite threateningly._

"_All right, all right," said Hoggle._

"_Okay?" asked the hat._

"_Okay," Hoggle confirmed._

"_All right," sighed the relieved Wiseman._

"_All right! Sorry," said the hat, looking pityingly at Hoggle._

"_Finished?" the Wiseman asked, cross again._

_Hoggle squealed, "NOT IF YOU KEEP—"_

"_Yes, he's finished," I interrupted hastily. The last thing I needed was another enemy._

_The Wiseman cleared his throat again. "Quite often, young lady, it seems as if we're not getting anywhere, when, in fact…"_

"_We are," the hat finished for him._

"_We—are," the Wiseman repeated with annoyance, turning his brown-gold eyes upward into his thick white eyebrows. He must have utterly failed to look at the bird-hat._

_I bit my lip, torn between frustration and weariness. "But we really _aren't _getting anywhere!"_

"_Ha! Join the club!" the hat squawked._

_The Wiseman suddenly snored, and the bird blinked. "I, uh, think that's your lot. Please leave a contribution in the little box."_

_I stared at the dark wooden box the Wiseman held out and hesitated, beginning to pull a jewel out of the pouch._

"_Don't you dare! Them's mine," Hoggle whined._

_I let the cloth fall through my fingers and swing against my hip, telling the Wiseman and his hat, "I'm sorry. I don't have anything. Not even a plastic bracelet from the TARDIS." _

_Hoggle cleared his throat.__Interestingly, though traveling in the TARDIS gave me delusions of grandeur equaling BAD WOLF, as far as worldly possessions on hand went, I was homeless. _

"_Gracias anyway, Señorita," said the hat, looking particularly disappointed. I wondered if, like the Doctor, it used foreign languages for kicks. _

_As Hoggle and I walked on, I sighed, "You could thank me for resisting temptation." I indicated his pouch._

_He rolled his eyes and grunted, "Why would you give them _anything _when he didn't tell you nothin'?"_

_I looked around at the Labyrinth hedges and couldn't help feeling that Hoggle was dismally right. But I shrugged. "Loads of times kooky advice makes sense afterwards. I learned that from the Doctor."_

_The irony of this statement hit me. In amusement, I thought, _Maybe Jareth is right about not being able to navigate without him. Everything I know, I learned from the Doctor.

_The thought was surprisingly comforting. I wasn't about to let my hero down._

_A hideous roar interrupted my thoughts. It sounded as if it was coming just around a couple of corners in the greenery._

_"What is that?" I asked aloud, taking one step forward and two steps back._

"_Yeeiahh!" it continued._

"_Oh! Goodbye!" Hoggle turned and started running in the opposite direction on his short legs. _

"_Wait, Hoggle!" I called. "Remember how much you liked being my friend?" I felt desperate and managed to catch his arm. "Are you or not?"_

"_Nope! Hoggle ain't no one's friend!" he yelled, twisting his arm free. "He looks after himself, like everyone! Hoggle is Hoggle's friend!"_

_I stamped my foot as he got smaller and smaller, then vanished around the corner. "That's not the way the world has to work!" This, I thought while I gritted my teeth, was another thing the Doctor taught me. Somewhere in the universe, someone is willing to help you._

"_Arrggh!" the unknown creature yelled._

_I took a deep, angry breath. "I refuse to be the whiny coward. Things aren't ever what they seem here."_

_So, in my infinite teenage wisdom, I rounded the corner._

_,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,._

All things considered, the landing was surprisingly soft. That is, no permanent damage.

I was in a dark, sandy tunnel with a low ceiling so I had to crouch. There was no light at all except where the trap door lay open. I wished that I could've reached up and closed it, but it was too far away. Ah, well. _With any luck, Jareth won't notice I'm gone for quite some time. _

For somebody with as bizarre a sense of humor and/or decorating as Jareth had, the tunnel was very nondescript. My guess was somebody else had built it. Or dug it.

So, basically, I just crawled for a while. It seemed so dull. No turns or corners or anything. I had to drop Lars at one point. Crawling on all fours with a screwdriver in your hand is not the most comfortable thing in the world. Then, very subtly, almost imperceptibly, the tunnel seemed to go more uphill. After what seemed like hours of breathing sand, I finally broke through to the surface. And what else would greet me after hours of escape, but Jareth's face.

I jumped back, startled, and slapped a hand over my mouth so I wouldn't scream. Then I frowned, turned my head, and almost laughed with relief. It was a series of rocks arranged so that if you looked at it at _just _the right angle, it would look like Jareth.

_I'm beginning to think Napoleon had a Jareth complex, _I thought, shaking my head in disbelief.

No sooner had I had this thought than I heard Jareth's voice. "Well, if it isn't you. What are you up to this time?"

I thought he really had caught me this time, and ducked behind the biggest of the rocks out of habit.

"Erm, nothing," a deep, gravelly voice responded nervously.

I slowly leaned up and peeked over the top of Jareth's rock nose. I saw Jareth (the real one), and what looked like a small, well, ugly little man. _This must be that dwarf he mentioned, _I thought. _Hedwig, wasn't it?_

The answer he gave didn't seem to satisfy the aforementioned king of goblins. "Nothing? _Nothing? _Nothing, tra-la-la?"

"Hmm," I murmured. Not the best idea when you're trying to hide, I know, but he said "Tra-la-la"! And it was the way he said it. It sounded... almost aggressive. When Jareth spoke to me, his voice was always so smooth, as if he was trying to, for lack of a better word, seduce me. Maybe he was, in a way.

No wonder Hedwig was terribly upset. "Uh, well, she, uh, they! Uh, gave me the slip, see," he sputtered. "But I think I hears them now, so I was about to lead her, uh them back to the beginning, like you told me."

This made me furious. _They're talking about Grace and the Doctor, _I thought. _I flipping _hate_ Jareth._

"I see," Jareth said in his aggravatingly calm voice. "For one moment, I thought you'd _lost_ the Doctor. But no, not after my warnings. That _would _be stupid."

"You bet it would," said Hedwig, determined to agree with Jareth on everything. "Me? Lose the Doctor? After your warnings?" He laughed nervously. This pretty much meant he had lost the Doctor.

Apparently, Jareth thought so as well. "Oh dear. Poor Hoghead."

_Hoghead?_

"Hoggle!"

_Ah..._

"I've just noticed your lovely jewels are missing."

This, of course, meant nothing to me.

"Uh, oh, yes! So they are. My lovely jewels, stolen! By that girl, I bet. Well, I'd better go get them back. After I lead her, erm, them, to the beginning of the labyrinth."

"Wait," Jareth said, I suspect with a devilishly devious expression on his face. (Awesome alliteration, eh?) "I've got a much better plan. Give this to the Doctor."

I didn't dare sneak another peek, for risk of being seen. I wondered what it was.

"W-what is it?"

"It's a present."

_Oh thanks, Jareth. _Real _descriptive, that._

"Will it hurt Grace?"

I frowned. Why should he care?

"Only if she eats it. Why the concern?"

_Okay, narrows it down._

"I won't harm nobody," responded Hoggle. I pictured him with his arms folded, shaking his head as if to say, "No way."

"Come, Hogbrain! I'm surprised at you, losing your head."

"I ain't lost my head!"

"You don't think a young girl could like a repulsive little scab like you, do you?"

_What exactly is Jareth implying? _I wondered.

"Well, she said we was—"

"What? Bosom companions? Friends?"

"Ahh. Don't matter."

_Huh. Grace made friends with an ugly, double-crossing dwarf. Good for her._

"You'll give her Doctor that, Hoggle, or I'll tip you straight into the Bog of Eternal Stench before you can blink!"

I snickered. _Bog of Eternal Stench? Is that the best name he could come up with? Is that the best _punishment _he could come up with?_

"Yes. Right."

Oddly enough, Hoggle's voice sounded as though this was a fate worse than death.

I heard one set of footprints leave and the usual silence that heralded Jareth's disappearance. I slowly peeked over the top of the rock again and saw a small pile of glitter. Or maybe it was goblin dust.

_Right, _I thought, trying to process everything I'd just witnessed. _Hoggle the Ugly Dwarf is about to give the Doctor… something. Something edible… something poisoned. Crap. _OH, _crap!_

I knew I had to warn the Doctor, but if he wasn't with Grace…

_CRAP!_

I stood upright, took in my surroundings, and started running without being sure where I was going.

_Surely I can outrun a dwarf. I have to._

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

_Imagine a street framed by hedges on one side and by vine-clung stones on the other for a mental image of the courtyard I was hiding on the edge of. _

_Now imagine the tutu-toting elephant from Sesame Street…_

_Psych!_

_What I actually was saw a furry red giant dangling by his feet from ropes above armored goblins. This monster long, limp flaps for ears and forward-sticking horns like a bull's. Strictly, he wasn't quite red or exactly furry—but everywhere he was covered with grey-red-orange hair except on his feet, hands, and face, which were grey-skinned. The goblins soldiers were poking at the moaner with their spears and taunting him. Actually, I realized, the spears were sticks with ugly pink critters on the end, and these were biting the alien/beast._

_The Doctor would_ _hate _that, _I thought. More to the point, _I _hated it. The poor beast was huge and shaggy, but rather sort of adorable, and he was in pain._

_For a moment I started to turn away and leave the creature. Don't judge me too harshly; time was running out. The Doctor was out there somewhere, and we needed to meet up to find Tegan. But then the beast turned his almost rectangular, grey-skinned face and looked straight into my eyes with his small eyes._

_Remember what I said about someone, anyone, trying to help you? I decided then that even though Hoggle wouldn't be that person to me, I would be that person to the tormented, tied-up creature. The Doctor had been that person so many times, and if I didn't want to be his puppy, could I at least be a girl after his hearts?_

_Still looking at me, the creature opened his cavernous mouth. I saw upturned fangs and a wide tongue. But his cries changed key. The beast was—singing? _

_A rock rolled up and tapped my foot. Without a second thought, I scooped it up and flung it. It hit a goblin helmet so perfectly that the helmet spun around, blinding the goblin._

_Mind you, I can't hit a trash can with a crumpled paper. It almost seemed as if magic guided the rock, which wouldn't have surprised me a bit._

_More rocks rolled up to me, and soon I incapacitated all the goblins without actually hurting anyone—I figured the Doctor would appreciate that whenever I found him again. The goblins ran off, squealing._

_Characteristically incautious, I ran to the rope holding up the creature. He watched me with melancholy eyes. "I'm a friend," I told him hastily, untying the knot._

_I had meant to lower him gently, but his weight tore the rope from my hands (ouch!), and he landed hard, and not on his feet._

"_Sorry, sorry!" I cried, trying to help him up. "Are you hurt? Can you talk?" _

_He blinked. "Frrriennd," he said, voice deep and somehow comforting._

_I giggled. "Yeah. You're just a big sweetheart, aren't you? My name's Grace."_

"_Lu-do." He carefully pronounced each syllable._

"_That's lovely." We studied each other for a moment, both grinning rather foolishly. "Well, I've got to find my friend—s. Now I'm missing two." I sighed._

"_Lu-do help Grrrace find frrriennd-zz."_

_I found myself ruffling his red fur. "Aw, thanks, Ludo!" And because I am a spontaneous and easily disarmed person, I asked, "Can I hold your hand? I have a habit of losing friends in the Labyrinth."_

"_Better idea," he said, putting his two-fingered, single-thumbed hands around my waist and dropping me onto his head. Such gorilla-like arms made the lifting effortless. His shoulders (or even his hips) would have made me do the splits._

_"This_ is _a better idea, except that I'm backwards." I swayed to keep my balance as Ludo turned. "Nope, sorry, still backwards. Wait! I can see the Doctor's hair from here! DOCTOR!" I shouted, waving furiously._

_He jumped up and down, just enough to see me, adding a word each time. "Garace?" Jump. "You—"jump—"grew!"_

"_Come meet my BFF Ludo!"_

"_Coming!" Jump. "Stay—" jump—"right—" jump—"there!" _

_I decided to stay put for once. While we waited, I swung my legs around and explained the Tegan/center of the Labyrinth situation to Ludo. He had one of those faces to which I wanted to blurt out my heart. _

_As always, the Doctor arrived at a run. "Garace, you found a Rocksinger! What's your name, big boy? Ludo? _Piacere_, Ludo! You big, hairy, really sort of—"_

"_Adorable, I know," I laughed. _

"_Where's Hoggle?"_

"_Ludo scared him off," I sighed, then brightened. "But he's bound to come back."_

_"Don't tell me he's_ _your BFF now too," the Doctor said scornfully._

"_Well…" I thought of what he'd said when we met the Wiseman. "I meant I took these from him." I brandished the jewels._

"_Oho, Garace!" The Doctor's grin forced itself into a scowl. "I completely disapprove."_

_I'd seen it before ("The Next Doctor" ring any bells?) and just stared him down. _

_He sniffed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Well—I suppose, just this _once—_I can overlook it."_

_I smirked. "Oh, goody. In the meantime, I've been telling Ludo about Tegan."_

"_Lu-do help Grrrace find frrriennd."_

"_Brilliant," the Doctor said, but the excitement left his voice. "Probably'll turn out to be another Hoggle. I hate being deserted."_

"_Ludo help Grrrace!" Ludo insisted. "Grrrace Ludo's frrriennd."_

_The Doctor narrowed his eyes at me. "What have you been doing, Garace?"_

_I shrugged from atop Ludo's head. "Oh, nothing much. Cough throwing rocks cough. This and that. Cough rescuing Rockslingers cough. The usual. Cough being marvelous cough." _

_"It's_ Rocksingers_, actually. Because they—" _

"_All in a day's work. Cough doing you proud again cough. Say thank you?"_

_The Doctor grinned. "Fine, Ludo can come. Question is, can he handle the running?"_

* * *

><p><em>AN from Zoe: Ludo is my favorite character. : )_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

I gave up on running pretty early on. I'm not much of a runner. Or rather, I wasn't at the time. Grace and I soon learned.

I ended up in some sort of woods, although not like one I'd ever seen before. The trees seemed to be thick vines with leaves, more than anything. And it was awfully dark for a wood. It wasn't that night was falling, because it was broad daylight when I was eavesdropping on Jareth and Hoggle. This forest was just dark. Dark enough that I couldn't tell quite where the clicking sound was coming from. It sounded as though somebody was banging sticks together.

Suddenly, to my terror, a furry creature almost as tall as I am leaped out and yelled "YAAAAH!" in my face. I, naturally, responded, "AAAAH!"

At such close range, the face was easy to study. Also, it's kind of ingrained in my memory and sometimes continues to surface at night when I'm having difficulty sleeping. It was a sort of fiery-red color, with a feathery mane surrounding its face. It had a leathery beak with small protruding fangs.

I turned around to flee with great courage, but there was another one behind me, banging two sticks against eachother. This one was shorter and had a rounder beak, but was no less terrifying. I whirled around, trying to find an escape route, but they were all around me. They each looked slightly different, but they all had thin bodies and limbs, with three long fingers and a thumb on each hand.

The one that had first jumped out at me struck his finger on the ground and started a fire in the leaves.

And then, he began to sing. I don't know why either.

"When the sun goes down," he sang.

"When the sun goes down," the others chorused. They did that after pretty much every sentence. It was sort of like Dufflepuds, as if they were agreeing wholeheartedly with everything he sang.

"And the bats are back to bed," he continued to sing. "The brothers come 'round and I get out of my dirty bed."

At least, I think that's what he said. I was a little busy freaking out.

"I don't got no problems," he sang, creeping closer. "Ain't got no suitcase." He grabbed my arms and shook them for reasons I can't explain. I'll be honest, this whole scenario made utter nonsense.

"I just throw in my hand with the chilliest bunch in the land." And at this, he pulled off his hand and threw it in the fire. This took me completely by surprise, and I jumped back, slapping a hand over my mouth in horror. I blinked and it had grown back, and he was waving it in my face.

The others began dancing about, waving their arms in a similar manner. One of them pulled at a nearby tree branch. I thought he was going to pull himself onto it, but instead, he used it to stre-e-e-etch his legs so they were twice their length.

I turned to make a run for it, but another one was behind me. I watched frozen in horror as he stuck his fingers directly into his eyeballs and plucked them out. He tossed them to the one with the round beak, who rolled them like dice. I couldn't help but shriek. The one grabbed them, tossed them into the air, threw back his head and caught them in his sockets. Please excuse me while I shudder at this memory.

As if that wasn't enough trauma, the round one pulled his head _off _, and they all began bouncing it like a basketball. The first one grabbed it and tried to dribble it, but it bit his arm. He yelled and so did I. He then returned the head to its body before removing his own head and playing soccer with it. All the while, they were singing. Another one gave it a mighty kick, and it landed back on his shoulders.

Once again, I thought things couldn't get any worse, but then he leaped onto my head and tried to pull_ it_ off. When it didn't, he stopped, looked to the others and yelled, "Hey! Her head don't come off!"

I pushed him off me. "Of course it doesn't! I'm a human!"

This word clearly didn't mean anything to them. "Just pull harder," said one who looked like he had a beard.

"Yeah," said the round one. "Let's pull off her head!"

I tried to run, but they dog-piled me. Four of the five of them pinned me down next to a tree, while the fifth stood on my shoulders, grabbed me under the chin, and started pulling. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like a barn owl, watching the goings-on. I felt the muscles in my neck start to crick and ache. I pulled one hand free, and grabbed at the hand on my chin in an attempt to loosen it. It worked just long enough to choke out, "Doctor!"

I looked around for something, anything that might be able to help, and didn't see the owl. What I did see was Jareth, slipping out from behind the tree, brushing feathers off his black, glittering cloak. I was actually relieved to see him.

At first glance, he didn't seem bothered by what was happening in front of him; he appeared to be examining a small glass sphere in his hand. However, he cleared his throat, and all of the creatures froze.

The one on my shoulders loosened his grip and stood upright to address the Goblin King on behalf of the others. "Your Majesty, we sees this girl, walking alone, and we thinks about this decree about a girl and a man who ain't to make it to the castle, so we thought we'd—"

"That isn't her," he said very simply. The kind of simple way that the Doctor used to tell Harriet Jones that he'd end her career in six words.

"Oh... well..." The creature clearly didn't know what to say. The others let me up, and I would've scrambled away had I not been busy catching my breath.

I looked up at Jareth. He was staring at the creatures with such intensity that they were huddled together, as if they thought that he'd start killing stragglers. Well, they were half right.

His arm shot out, grabbed the spokes-creature, and pulled it away from the others. It seemed as though in a crisis, they lose the ability to detach and stretch their limbs. This one just hung there, limp, staring fearfully at Jareth, who stared right back.

Suddenly, the poor creature began to shudder violently. At first I thought it was out of fear, but then its eyes rolled back. Its hair started to shrink back into its skull, and it started to grow. Its face flattened and began to resemble a turtle's. Its arms shortened and almost seemed to slide upward as they grew fatter and more leathery. Its body and legs followed suit. It turned a sort of sickly green color, except for its stomach, which took on a yellowish tint. Its eyes, while popping out slightly and developing wrinkly lids, remained constantly fearful.

When the process was over, Jareth let go, and it fell to the ground, squealing.

"All you ever wanted was a life without care or responsibility. Now you're a beast of burden," he said quietly. The poor creature, whatever it was now, ran off, still squealing. The others scattered.

I was still lying on the ground, unable to move for the shock of what I just witnessed.

I turned to look up at Jareth, who was already looking at me. He held out a gloved hand, and I hesitated before taking it.

_I suppose the frying pan is preferable to the fire, _I thought as he helped me up.

All the same, I wanted the Doctor now more than ever.

_,.,.,.,.,.,_

_Ludo's pine-branch-like tail swept the ground as we jogged on our way, each step a little closer (we hoped) to Tegan. Except that we ran into two dead ends in a row and ended up circling back from the second toward the first._

_"Why're you riding Ludo?" the Doctor asked me._

_"'Cause he's a big sweetheart!" I patted Ludo's head. (To his credit, Ludo did not roll his eyes.) "Also, I can't run as long as you can. One, my legs are shorter than yours; two, I'm out of shape; four—no wait… Three, I'm new to all of this and haven't quite figured out how to appreciate the running; and five—"_

_"I bet you just want to be taller than I am," the Doctor interrupted._

_We had circled completely around now, but two doors with fantastic gargoyle-like knockers sat side by side on the wall. I pulled Ludo's horns, my signal for him to halt, and dismounted. "Hey. This _was_ a dead end, right?"_

_"Hmm?" Ludo asked._

_I motioned at the doors. "Where did they come from?" _

_"Huh. What do you two think? Ludo? Garace?" The Doctor went on with obvious relish: "Which of these two ugsome characters should we choose?"_

_"Mmm…" mumbled Ludo._

_The first knocker, which had a ring in its ears, cried, "It's very rude to stare!"_

_Of course they were sentient. I laughed, "Oh! We're sorry. We just wondered which door to choose."_

_"Hs df asa pst," said the second knocker through the ring in its mouth. (I mean, that's approximately what he said. I didn't just choose random keys on the keyboard, I promise.)_

_"Don't talk with your mouth full," scolded the first knocker._

_"I'm nt tlkg wth my mth fll!" th scnd knckr prtstd. (Srry, lt m fx… Aha. Sorry, my vowel keys actually stuck that time.)_

_"I'm afraid we can't understand you," the Doctor said._

_"Talk strange," Ludo rumbled._

_"The TARDIS translates any language inside your head," I thought aloud, "but when it comes to doorknockers with bad manners, we're helpless."_

_The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember explaining the TARDIS translating to you."_

_"Martha did," I said with only a slight hesitation. "After otters started talking to us on Sunday. It raised my curiosity."_

_"Ah, that makes sense…" He gave me a secretive smile, almost as if approving me. Which was, of course, nonsense. _

_I hastily pulled the ring from the second doorknocker's mouth with a metallic clang. "Now, um, what were you saying?"_

_"Ah! Oh! Oh!" The knocker worked its jaw. "It is so good to get that thing out!" I heard a crack, and the knocker jerked its chin at the other. "By the way, it's no good talking to him. He's deaf as a post."_

_"Mumble, mumble," grumbled the first knocker. "You're a wonderful conversational companion."_

_"All you do is moan!" the second shot back._

_"Rather like a teenager," the Doctor observed. _

_Handing the ring to Ludo, I cleared my throat and glared him down._

_"What? Oh. Sorry." The Doctor pulled a face. "Present company is, ah, acceptable."_

_"No good," said the first knocker. "Can't hear you."_

_"Where do these doors lead?" the Doctor asked no one in particular._

_"Eh? I mean, pardon?" said the first knocker._

_"Search me," said the second, also unhelpfully. "We're just the knockers."_

_"Rrr," Ludo growled, looking through the ring curiously. "Oh."_

_"Does_ anyone _know how to get through the Labyrinth?" I sighed._

_"Well, how do we get through, then?" the Doctor asked. "I don't see handles."_

_"Huh?"_

_"Knock, and the door will open."_

_"Sounds good. Erm…" I reached back toward Ludo for the ring and realized he had it in his mouth. Stifling a laugh, I tugged it back out and walked up to the second knocker. "Let us through."_

_"I am not putting that back in my mouth," the knocker said disbelievingly._

_"But we have to knock." I felt familiar frustration. "It's sort of the only way!"_

_"Doesn't want his ring back in his mouth, eh?" commented the other knocker with a chuckle. "Can't say I blame him."_

_The Doctor stroked his chin. I could see him trying to work out how to get through and clutched the ring tighter._

_"Let me try to figure out this one," I pleaded, willing him to understand._

_The Doctor coughed. "All right."_

_I walked in front of the reluctant knocker, holding the ring in my hand. The knocker smirked, which only made me angry._

_"If you won't open your mouth willingly…" I reached up and plugged his nose between my fingers. _

_The Doctor looked alarmed momentarily. "Ugh, really? I mean, great idea, Garace!"_

_"Ummphmmmmmhhmmhh," the knocker grunted, trying to hold its breath, and finally opened its mouth to gasp, "Ah!"_

_"Aha!" I echoed, stuffing the ring back in. _

_"Yes!" said Ludo as I triumphantly knocked and the door swung open. I looked through into a spooky, dim forest with wide-trunked trees._

_"Sorry, really," I told the knocker. "You were very helpful, not like most everyone else…"_

_"Tha's a'ight," the knocker said through the ring. "A'm usedo i."_

_I suddenly had an idea. The door was open, so why shouldn't I take the ring back out? I reached up and gave it a hard yank. I let the ring roll around on the ground like a spinning penny._

_"Oh!" cried the knocker. "Why, thank you very much!"_

_"No," I said, biting my lip to hide a smile. "Thank you."_

_"Come on, Ludo. Garace," said the Doctor, already on the other side of the open door. We lumbered through together, and it closed behind us, leaving us in the crowded forest. _

_The Doctor drew near to me. "Ah, Garace. I was just going to go through the other door—" (I blushed) "—but you did very well."_

_"Huh? Ohhh," said Ludo, drifting to the side as if realizing he wasn't part of the conversation._

_"I should hope so," I murmured. "I'm not your puppy, Doctor."_

_"I never said you were, Garace. And I know your proper name," the Doctor said quietly, relieving my hurt. _

_"Actually," I said, shrugging in what I meant to be a nonchalant manner, "I _like_ you to call me Garace."_

"_Quite right, too. If Jareth had seen you save our lives on Sunday, he would've been speechless."_

_But he probably _had_ seen it—that is, how I had read my brilliance in a novel and "clever and witty Tegan" had put everything together by real companionship. _

"_I should know better than to listen to Jareth" is how I responded. Ludo made a sympathetic, gentle noise. "Doctor, what crimes did he commit?"_

_This seemed to take him off-guard. "Oh, fraud, thievery… general creepiness."_

"_What else?" I pressed._

"_Why does there have to be an else?"_

"_Because you're hiding something. Haven't you seen Hoodwinked? 'We don't arrest people for being creepy.' You wouldn't imprison him in your nightmare just for—"_

"My _nightmare?" the Doctor repeated. I snapped my mouth shut, realizing I shouldn't have known. "I might."_

"_Doctor…" This time it was Ludo._

"_Illegal transfiguration."_

"_Which means?"_

_"You saw him transfigure that crystal he had. That's all fine; but when you transform living things… such as people into—say—goblins…"_

_I took a deep breath, but the words still tumbled out. "You gave this man who twists people into_ goblins_ a way to snatch people—and now Tegan—It's as bad as murder—" _

"_Garace, you know Sylar from Heroes, yeah?" the Doctor said abruptly._

_Now he'd taken me off-guard. "The TV show? Yeah. He's a psycho murderer."_

"_But his worst fear is dying alone."_

"_Are you saying Jareth is like that?" I said, my voice dropping to be very soft._

_"I'm saying_ we're _like that—he and I. Loneliness _is_ my nightmare. I have deaths on my conscience and he has ugly deeds on his hands, but he's alone. I understand why he wants my companions."_

"_Ludo scared," Ludo interrupted._

"_Oh, Ludo!" I pressed my hand into his big one, glad for a distraction from the Doctor's words, even if it meant focusing on the spooky forest._

_As we walked on in silence, and I tried not to think about what the Doctor had said because I didn't completely understand it, I thought about how extremely creepy the forest was. _I am not arachnophobic, _I told myself, hoping the big word would stop the shivers up my spine. _I have never been arachnophobic. I will not start arachnophobia now.

_The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Move along, you two sissies." He patted Ludo's back. "Imagine a big thing like you being scared."  
><em>

_"Yeah," grunted Ludo._

"_I'm imagining," I said, giving the Doctor a pointed look. Then I combed Ludo over with my eyes. "Surprisingly vivid, my imagination."_

"_Garace, there's nothing to be afraid of."_

"_Considering what we've already seen here—" I started. It would have been a solid argument, too, had not Ludo suddenly cried, "Oh!" and his two-fingered hand tore out of mine._

_So I finished: "Ludo! Where is he?" _

_He had gone _utterly. _It had felt, just for a moment, as if he'd gone _down.

"_Ludo?"_

_But if Ludo had fallen, why was the ground around us solid?_

"_Ludo?" from the Doctor. He didn't have a clue, either?_

_Unless the ground _wasn't _solid_


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"Were you the owl I saw?"

Jareth smiled. Apparently, he'd hoped I would figure this out. "Are you impressed?"

"Well, there's good news and bad news. Good news first, you _are _very impressive. Bad news, no, I'm not impressed."

His smile faded. We continued walking towards the castle. "Okay, yeah," I went on to say. "Point for you, you saved my life. It's the thing you did afterwards that makes me want to run as if the devil were on my heels."

"You could, if you wanted to."

"Well, it's not as if I could outrun you, Captain Midnight."

He raised an eyebrow at me. I wondered if he got pop culture references.

"I bet you think I don't understand that reference."

"How about you guess what I'm thinking now?"

He stopped and studied my face, which made me very uncomfortable. He sighed at me. "Oh, Tegan, I thought better of you."

I smirked in a hollow way. "You're a real piece of work, you know that? So tough against a goblin who couldn't even look you in the eye. How about taking on somebody your own size?"

Yeah, I know, it was a stupid argument.

He raised his eyebrows, amused at the uncharacteristic childishness of this remark, then looked me up and down. "Who, _exactly, _did you have in mind?"

He met my eyes and I resisted the urge to shudder at the force of his glance. Instead, I decided to ignore the implications of it and go with my other gut instinct.

"You needn't think so little of my intelligence, I am well aware that I'm dealing with somebody cleverer and far more powerful than myself."

I talk that way when I'm stressed. All Austen-y.

"You might care to recall that what I did, I did to protect you!"

"Those things were terrified of you! The one went into _shock_ before you transformed him because he was so scared! All you had to do was look at them funny, and they'd run, but no. That's _far_ too simple. Not nearly _impressive_ enough. Don't try to kid me, Jareth; that's really why you did it. Not to punish him; you'd already done that just by showing up. This was just a magic trick to you. A parlor game designed to intimidate and impress."

Jareth stared, then reached out as if he was going to touch my face. I recoiled.

"Is that why you want to go back?" he finally asked, cocking his head. "To a friend who doesn't appreciate you, a Doctor who can't even see you? Because you're afraid?" He lifted his chin. "You're safer here."

For a moment, I literally did not understand those words three words in that order. The Doctor had always equaled safety for me. I had to stop and think about all the things I'd be missing if I stayed with… in the Labyrinth.

"Think of what you'll miss if you stay."

_Okay, really?_ He continued. "What happens next? Saxon, isn't it?"

And again, he's inside my head. I wanted to smack that smug look off his face, but nevertheless, he made an excellent point. Doctor or not, I wasn't looking forward to that. I reeeeally wasn't looking forward to that.

In fact, for the first time since I'd been there, despite everything he'd done, Jareth seemed safer than staying with the Doctor. But then again, we went into the TARDIS because of Saxon. And the whole traveling through Time and Space thing, but that was more of a delightful bonus.

But then again, this way, I'd avoid Saxon altogether. But was I willing to sit here in safety while I sent Grace out to face what terrified me? What kind of person would that make me?

"Why?"

"What?" For whatever reason, this seemed to catch him off guard.

"You remember 'why', don't you? That question I asked when I first got here that you fanboyed over but never actually answered?" I rambled angrily. "Why me? Why not Grace? Or Martha? Why is this offered to me and not them? What makes me so different?"

"Because you need me."

"What? I don't need you! We're out here right now because you are the last thing I need."

Jareth stopped. I turned to face him.

"I have been generous until now, but I can be cruel."

"Yes, I'm aware of your cruelty, but I don't believe I've noticed much generosity from you." I was starting to get angry with this arrogant, self-centered, pompous King of—

Fairies!

_I hope you heard that, Jareth!_

I rather think he did, because his voice took on that aggressive quality he had used with Hoggle. "Everything that you wanted I have done! You wanted to be taken. I took you."

"You kidnapped me!"

"If you didn't want to be here, you wouldn't," he said, as if he'd already explained this, and I really should understand it by now. He pointed in the direction we'd just come from. "You were cowering before me, and I was frightening."

"Oh, yeah, thanks, lovely of you to oblige." I was beginning to think sarcasm was lost on him.

"I have turned my world upside-down, and I have done it all for you! I'm exhausted from living up to your expectations of me."

"Truly, you have a dizzying ego."

Jareth sighed, shook his head, and turned back to me. "Can you honestly say that I am not generous? What makes the Doctor any different from me? He takes people who want to go with him. Isn't that what I did?"

"This really is fascinating. It's as though you're incapable of telling the truth. Okay, fair play to you, you're not lying; you genuinely believe everything you say. But I don't. The Doctor shows us freedom. You locked me in your castle like a keepsake. Like you want me to be your puppy, clapping at the magic tricks imprisoning me!"

Jareth was struck, for the moment, speechless. I was a little unsure as to why, but I wasn't going to complain.

We walked for a while in silence before coming up to a low wall that was still taller than I am. Jareth looked at me expectantly, and I looked at him expectantly.

"Aren't you… going to make a door or something?"

He sighed once more and disappeared.

_What now? Is he just toying with me now?_

"Yes," said a voice from on top of the wall. I looked up and saw Jareth crouching on top, holding out a hand to me. I had a very bad feeling.

"Oh, no! Do you think for one second that I'm going to let you touch me long enough to get me up there?"

"Do you think you have a choice?"

_Crap._

"I'll buy you dinner," he said, smiling mischievously.

"I've… sort of lost my appetite."

He dropped his hand. "What have you eaten since you've been here? A banana?"

I couldn't help myself: I stood on my toes, jabbed a finger in his face, and said, "I _knew _that was you!"

He glanced at my finger, and then back at me in amusement. I hastily withdrew.

"I insist. Surely you're hungry." It really wasn't a question.

"All right, but there are conditions. No meat, no candles, definitely no inanimate objects singing, and no date jokes of any kind."

"How do you feel about peaches?"

"Just one! One peach, and that's dinner."

_,.,.,.,.,.,_

_We should have stepped away after Ludo fell, looked for our new friend from another angle .__But a voice, a weird war cry, shouted, "Blah!" We turned around._

"_Hoggle?" the Doctor and I cried together._

"_You—you came back to help us!" I exclaimed, reaching out for him._

_"No!" he protested. I thought he meant he hadn't come back to help us. He was actually trying to stop me from moving, particularly moving toward him._

_One step was all the excuse the ground needed to fold again. I flew downward like a rock, the Doctor right behind me. Hoggle must have thrown a rope, because the terrifying lurch of free-fall stopped with the Doctor, teeth clenched, grabbing my forearm with one hand and a rope with the other._

_Evidently our weights were too much for Hoggle._

_That lucky rope snagged the surface when the ground closed back up, but Hoggle, the Doctor, and I fell back into complete darkness. I was the first to hit the shaft (flat on my back, which was better than some other positions)._

_As we slid, I bizarrely noticed how hoarse my yell sounded. Wear and tear, I guessed._

_I kept bracing my legs to hit something, to slow us down. I wasn't braced for the Doctor (sitting up) to hit me from behind so that we ended up riding each other like some kind of bobsled._

"_Sorry!" I called._

"_What are you sorry for?" the Doctor hollered back. (You have to scream everything __when you're falling. Hoggle did nothing _but.)

"_I see light," I panted, "and I can't brake!"_

_The Doctor and I barely managed to catch hold of the side of the trapdoor we came out, and I saw instantly, before anything else, that we were _really _high up. It's __one thing not to be afraid of heights on a ladder, but suspension on a narrow stone ledge soaring over a green-black bog is something else entirely!_

"_Hold on!" Hoggle warned as he popped out right behind us, grabbing the edge of the shaft and nearly toppling me from the wall._

"_Hoggle, help me!" I cried, trying to hug a smooth surface._

"_Forget Hoggle," the Doctor said, spread-eagling to steady his back against the wall. I inched along the ledge toward him. "It's going to be okay." He took my shoulders to steady me as well._

_I took a deep breath and almost lost my balance again. "Oh my gosh! That smell!"_

_Hoggle came toward us, gagging. "No! Ooh! Blah!" Below, the surface of the swamp puckered and burst like a zit, with a farting noise. I nearly threw up._

"_What IS that?"_

"_The Bog of Eternal Stench! Blech!" Hoggle gasped, his hand reflexively moving for his nose, then back to the wall as we tried to shuffle off._

_The name seemed a lot less funny now. I alternately watched the Doctor and my feet, trying to find a place to put myself. We had to get out of here!_

"_Ugh!" The Doctor pulled an assortment of disgusted faces. "Even I've smelt nothing like it."_

"_It's like… like…" I trailed off, at a loss, as the bog farted, gagged, and burped at once, releasing new, even more revolting odor._

"_It doesn't matter what it's like," Hoggle croaked. "It's the Bog of Eternal Stench. Help!" The block of ledge beneath Hoggle crumbled._

"_DON'T TOUCH IT!" I squawked as I grabbed the back of his vest and deposited him next to me._

_I'd made it over that same block safely, but obviously it could fall apart any moment. "We need to move," I told the Doctor._

"_Yeah, working on it," he said, giving me an impatient glance as he reached his long legs over a gap in the wall. I noticed his eyes were watering and hoped, for his sake, that a Time Lord's sense of smell wasn't too much sharper than a human's._

_The bog burped._

"_This is disgusting," the Doctor said._

_Breathing through my mouth, I leaned toward the gap, hoping if I fell I'd fall inward. I didn't fall at all, and reached back to take Hoggle's hand to help him over. "By the way, um, Hoggle… Did you come back to get your pouch back, or to help me?"_

_He looked up sharply and almost tumbled, so I waited until we were both over to continue._

"_Because you're my friend?" I faltered on. "Our friend."_

"_Did not! Am not!" He sounded alarmed, not convincing. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder at us, raising an eyebrow._

"_You don't have to pretend to be so… Well, what I mean is…" I smiled at Hoggle. "You did throw us that rope."_

"_Didn't pay," he grunted. "I still ended up here in the Eternal Stench."_

"_Where did you get rope?" the Doctor muttered, half to himself._

"_I've just come to get me property back," Hoggle continued. "Like you said. Oh, and, uh, to give you… uh…"_

_I felt my eyebrows draw together as I stepped a block away from him. The wall had gotten lower, more a dirt heap. "Give me what?"_

"_Well, not you…" Hoggle cleared his throat. "The Doctor… but—oh! Ah!"_

_His loose block slid down the rest of the wall—with Hoggle surfing on it._

"_Hoggle!" the Doctor yelped, immediately scrambling down the dirt after him. The two of us dove headlong down after him. I prayed for firm ground, some sort of shore, to appear beneath us._

_When I was little (and, ahem, sometimes even now), I used to roll down hills at the park. This was considerably dirtier and more uncomfortable. And I was still in a skirt!_

_I heard Hoggle's surfboard hit something with a thunk. I bumped to a stop—on solid ground, praise the sweet Lord!—wiped grit out of my stinging eyes, and saw: "Ludo!"_

"_Smell," Ludo moaned._

_The Doctor's face lit up like a Christmas tree when he grinned, dusting himself off (on me as I stood up). "Ludo, it is brilliant to see you!"_

_I then noticed three things. 1) Hoggle was nowhere to be seen, 2) Ludo was sitting on his massive bum, and 3) muffled shouting was coming from under said bum. "Er, Ludo, great to see you and all," I said, working tongue around the inside of my jaw. "But is Hoggle under… uh… beneath your… self?"_

_The shouting formed words. "Geroff me!"_

_I winced. The Doctor lit up even more. "That's hilar—I mean, Ludo, would you stand?"_

_Ludo hefted his bulk. "Oh," he said, eloquently and profoundly expressing us._

"_Oh, here, Hoggle," I said in a subdued voice, helping him up._

"_We-ell." The Doctor scratched his neck, eyeing Hoggle up and down. "You bear slightly more resemblance to an accordion than before, but your face is in the right place. Or, at least, the _same_ place."_

"_He still has better ears than—" I choked and got weird stares from everyone. "My ex-boyfriend does."_

"_Ouch," said the Doctor._

_I've never had a boyfriend in my life. I had almost said, "the Ninth Doctor did." (In all fairness, Nine's ears _were_ atr__ocious.) The Labyrinth had made me careful of my feet and heedless of my words._

"_Sorry," Ludo told Hoggle._

"_Ack!" Hoggle replied, springing away from what he must have considered a monstrous form._

"_It's okay," I quickly intervened. "This is Ludo. He's a friend, too."_

"_A what?" from Hoggle._

"_What do mean by 'too'?" from the Doctor._

"_Duh, Hoggle's our friend now," I said. "He came back, no matter how hard he pretends to be. Right, Doctor?"_

_The Doctor harrumphed, unconvinced, and in Hoggle's behalf I felt bad._

"_Smell," Ludo groaned. Hoggle wheezed._

"_Definitely," said the Doctor to the soundtrack of the bog's burp and fart, starting to inch along the shore of the swamp._

"_I see a bridge. Come on!"_

_Hoggle grabbed my arm to keep me from running and splashing. "Watch it! You step in this stuff, and you'll stink forever."_

_I flushed. "So you've said."_

_Finally we reached the bridge. It didn't look too promising: a stone platform flanked by old trees and a weak board stretching across the swamp. Still, we were about to sally forth when a small, upright fox with an eye patch—yes, fox, and yes, eye patch—popped out of nowhere. "Stop! Stop, I say!" he shrilled._

"_We have to get across," the Doctor said, smiling good-naturedly. Amazing, how many people can find it in their lack of hearts to say no to that face._

_When the fox waved a switch in his paw, his yellow plume tried to swagger away from the rest of the blue hat. "Without my permission, no one may cross."_

"_Oh, not again!" I rapped my palm against my forehead. "Please, we don't have much time!"_

"_We have to get out of this stench," Hoggle snarled._

"_Smell bad!" Ludo wailed._

_I decided to act an emotional meltdown and found it came easily. "It's not just that…" I sniffed and stammered, "M-my best friend is at the c-center __of the La-ah-abyrinth—" I spoke faster—"Jareth's got her, and we only had thirteen hours to start, and we've gotten almost absolutely _nowhere!"

"_Not my concern, fair maiden." The fox seemed genuinely sorry for me. Then, curiously: "Of what stench speaketh thy comrades?"_

"_Um… THE stench," said the Doctor, suddenly at a loss._

"_I smell nothing. I live by my sense of smell," the fox boasted, sniffing delicately. He swung his stick again in the manner of a Disney animated character about to burst into song. "The air is sweet and fragrant—and none may pass without my permission!"_

"_Smell bad!" Ludo said more vehemently, his small eyes narrowing._

_I goggled at the fox. "He's crazy!"_

"_Be polite, Garace," the Doctor snapped automatically. He strode toward the fox. "Now, get out of our way!"_

_The fox jabbed his stick into the Doctor's shin. "I'm sworn to do my duty."_

"_Oi!" the Doctor cried, backing up again. "Can't argue with that."_

"_Yes you can!" I cried. "You can argue with anyone!"_

"_Ooh…" Hoggle fumed, looking murderous._

"_Let us get across," I demanded._

"_Hold!" The fox whapped me as I came forward, and did it ever sting! "Ooh! I don't want to hurt you!"_

_Ludo grabbed the staff and lifted the fox into the air. "My hero!" I laughed._

"_Let go of my staff! Yah!"_

_As t__he fox slid off his staff and crawled between Ludo's legs, I heard the Doctor yell, "Hoggle, what _are_ you doing?" and saw Hoggle run across the bridge. It looked like a good idea, but then the fox appeared on Ludo's head (having climbed up his back), and I__ knew we had to see what would happen next. I mean, we had to help Ludo._

_The fox rapped Ludo's skull repeatedly. "All right, then. I can conquer this mountain."_

"_Grr!" Ludo growled, swinging the fox forward on locks of his hair._

"_Whoa!" The fox sank his sharp, pointed teeth into Ludo's finger._

"_Aah!" Ludo threw him into a tree._

"_Ha ha!" The fox rebounded and hit Ludo's leg with his staff. "Thou must do better than that!"_

_I applauded. "You go, Ludo!"_

_Ludo broke a huge branch off one of the trees and brought it down, intending to squash the fox, but he leaped nimbly aside. "Give up? Ha ha!"_

_They danced around like that, Ludo thunking down the branch and the fox dodging, until Ludo trimmed the edge of his tail. The fox ran between the tree roots for cover, up the hollow trunk, and out a knothole eye-level with Ludo._

"_Never have I met my match in battle," the fox panted, addressing us all, "yet this noble knight has fought me to a standstill."_

_Ludo looked out of sorts. "Are you all right?" I asked, touching his arm._

_He covered his nose. "Smell."_

"_That. Was. Brilliant!" the Doctor burst out. Big surprise, he was grinning like this— :D_

"_Sir Ludo, I, Sir Didymus, yield to thee," said Didymus the fox. "Come, let us be brothers henceforth and fight for the right as one!"_

_Ludo smiled, and I wiped a leftover tear from my eye, sniffling dramatically. "Beautiful! Just lovely."_

_Ludo picked Sir Didymus out of the tree by his waist. "Ludo get brother."_

_The Doctor laughed. "Indeed you do, sir."  
><em>

_"Well-met, Sir Ludo," Didymus bowed._

"_Good," I said, crossing my arms. "Let's go now." I lifted my leg to step onto the stone part of the bridge, but once again Didymus blocked me. "What's wrong _this _time?" I groaned, astounded._

"_You forget my sacred vow, my lady. I cannot let you pass."_

"_Aw, but Ludo is your brother!" The Doctor held out his arms as if to showcase the hairy giant. "You can't refuse the plea of your brother, right?"_

_Sir Didymus looked as if the Doctor had wounded his honor. "I must defend my oath to the death."_

"_The smeeeeeell," Ludo wailed._

"_All right, all right, stay calm," the Doctor ordered. "Let's handle this logically. What _exactly _have you sworn, Didymus?"_

"_I have sworn with my lifeblood no one shall pass without my permission."  
><em>

_As one, the Doctor and I started to grin. "Well, then," the Doctor said to me. "Want the honors?"_

"_Oh yes." I licked my lips as if he'd given me a chocolate bar. "May we have your permission to cross, noble Sir Didymus?"_

_Didymus looked stern. "Well, I, uh… uh…" He softened. "Yes?"_

"_Thank you kindly," I sighed with relief._

"_My lady," he said, still looking confused, as if we'd tricked him into doing something, but he couldn't pin it down._

"_The name's Grace; you know Ludo; this is the Doctor, and across the bridge is our other friend Hoggle."_

"_One big, happy family," the Doctor said, bowing ironically. Across the bridge, I think I heard Hoggle snort._

"_Hm. Sirrahs…" Didymus motioned us onto the bridge._

"_Who wants to be the first across the board?" the Doctor asked encouragingly._

_I glanced sidelong at Ludo, doubting it would bear his weight._

"_Oh, fine." The Doctor tested it. About five strides down, it started to creak._

"_Uh-oh," Ludo said._

"_Have no fear," Didymus said grandly. "This bridge has lasted for one thousand years."_

_I bit my lip. "That is so not comforting!"_

_Didymus patted the rocks holding the end to demonstrate the bridge's solidity. They tumbled into the bog, and the bridge crashed and sank._


	7. Chapter 7

A/N a la Sara: Sorry about not updating in weeks. Zoe and I went on a Missions Trip and that sort of thing requires time and energy. And time. But fear not! Here we are with an update!

* * *

><p>Chapter Seven<p>

_The Doctor barely, and I mean _barely_, managed to catch a branch hanging overhead._

"_You should have pretended it was comforting!" the stranded Doctor shouted at me._

"_It seemed solid enough," Didymus shrugged, wincing slightly._

"_Any more bright ideas?" the Doctor hollered._

"_BEND YOUR KNEES!" yelled Hoggle from the other side._

"_Bright idea!" The Doctor tucked his legs up so his toes weren't so dangerously near the surface of the bog._

"_Fair maiden, how shall we save thy friend?"_

"_Somehow, anyhow!" I looked from Didymus to Ludo… and was inspired. "Wait. The Doctor wasn't talking about rock'n'roll when he called you a Rocksinger, was he?"_

_Ludo's eyes gleamed, and he opened his mouth and sang just the way he'd done when we met.  
><em>_  
>"Canst thou sit and howl when yon physician needs our help?" Didymus complained, motioning spastically at the Doctor hanging from his branch.<em>

_The Doctor grinned as if he'd just snogged Madame de Pompadour. "He's not howling! He's singing!"_

_As Ludo raised his voice, a boulder rolled down from the shore into the bog, stopped under the Doctor's feet. _

_He dropped on top of it in a crouch. "Dry!" he exulted._

_More boulders sprung up from the bog as stepping stones across the bog. _

"_You're full of surprises, Ludo!" I rubbed my hand through his reddish fur._

"_Incredible!" The Doctor hopped from stone to stone. "Keep it up!"_

_Now I started to cross, hoping my balance would hold. "Canst thou summon up the very rocks?" I heard Didymus ask Ludo._

"_Sure," said Ludo, mounting his stepping stones. "Rocks friends."_

_Hoggle steadied us as we dismounted on the other side. "Yuck," he said succinctly, guiding us farther inland._

"_Thank you, Hoggle," said the Doctor. I saw a change: he looked genuinely kind toward the goblin now. _

_The bog farted more. We were all eager to leave, but Didymus called, "Sir Ludo, wait for me! Oh, Ambrosius!"_

_A shaggy sheepdog wearing a colorful blanket and saddle ran out of—well, seemingly nowhere, but that's the Labyrinth for you. "It's all right, Ambrosius. Thatta boy!" Didymus smiled at us, swinging his leg into the dog's stirrup. "My loyal steed."_

"_The fox rides a dog?" I asked aloud._

"_He's not a fox. Foxes don't talk. Honestly, Garace." The Doctor rolled his eyes._

"_Up! Forward! Ah, steady!" Didymus cried as Ambrosius tried to buck his rider rather than cross the bog. The Doctor stifled his amusement, but I would have giggled if I hadn't been so impatient. "Just close your eyes and go!"_

_Ambrosius wagged his hairy head and finally trotted over. _

"_Get out now," Ludo said._

"_You make a definite point," the Doctor said. "I say, all for it!"_

"_Excuse us," said Didymus humbly. "Thank you for waiting. We should reach the castle well before day."_

"_What a relief," I said. _

_I don't know how long it took us to get away from the bog, but the Labyrinth was getting rapidly darker. After quite some walking, we entered a still dim but more cheerful forest of skinnier, less crowded trees. _

_The Doctor's stomach growled. "I'm hungry."_

"_You're always hungry," I said._

"_What's your point?"_

"_You might consider you aren't the only one," I muttered. Conveniently, I had finished a sub sandwich before the Doctor announced his intentions to meet Lewis, but so many hours running through a Labyrinth had given me pangs. Adrenalin kept my mind off it._

_Hoggle shuffled forward, holding out a banana. He didn't take his eyes off his feet. "Here," he grunted. _

_I licked my lips, but while I drooled the Doctor snatched it away with a grin._

"_Y'know, Hoggle," he said, "you might just turn out to be one of the good guys." He stripped down the peel and took a huge bite._

_Hoggle flinched, and it didn't take me long to figure out why. I looked over my shoulder. "The others are getting on ahead of us… Doctor?"_

_His eyes had glassed over, and he swayed on his feet. "Ga…race…"_

_I grabbed Hoggle's shoulders, lifted him, and shook him. "Hoggle, we trusted you! Finally trusted you! What have you done?"_

_The Doctor crashed to the ground—knees buckling first, then body toppling sideways. I dropped Hoggle, who promptly scarpered, cursing Jareth—and then himself. Sliding to my knees next to the Doctor, I turned him onto his back. "Come on, Doctor, come on."_

_The only thing I knew for sure was that he was breathing. What I would have given for Martha. I gently slapped his cheeks. "Remember how you said this was a piece of cake? Well, I need you to figure out this that easily, too. Please…"_

_,.,.,.,.,_

It was only a peach, but Jareth insisted on my eating in the dining room. Of course, it not being the most luxurious of castles, it wasn't a large, grand dining room. However, it was big enough to intimidate me into silence. For a while.

"What is Hoggle taking to the Doctor?"

Jareth looked up, rather startled. I smiled at him. An evil smile, yes, but he deserved it.

His look of shock lasted only a moment. He removed a small glass ball from his pocket and began examining it with interest. "It doesn't matter anymore. There's nothing you or _Grace _can do." He said her name as if it left bad taste in his mouth. He kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, as if he was waiting for me to do something. I didn't care, really.

I leaned forward and glared hard at Jareth. "What does that mean? What have you done to him?"

"You haven't slept since you've been here, have you?"

"What does that matter?"

"What does the Doctor matter now?"

That made my blood run cold. My eyes started getting fuzzy at the edges. I tried to argue. "Why… why sh-shouldn't…" I was having trouble concentrating.

This seemed to be what Jareth had been watching me for. He sat forward, stared intently at me, and began twirling the crystal in his hand, his eyes never straying from mine.

I tried to shake myself out of it, but I couldn't. My head felt so heavy. I tried speaking again. "What… what did… y…you…"

I noticed Jareth getting up and coming towards me. I tried to speak again, but he shushed me, and with a gloved hand, gently pushed my head down onto the table.

"Or should I say," he murmured, "what does the Doctor matter to you?"

,.,.,.,.,.,

_I called out for the others, but they were too far ahead to hear. I briefly considered running after them, but I didn't want to leave the Doctor. And I couldn't drag him—although I tried _really _hard, by his feet, by his armpits, straddling his legs and lifting under his knees, and even by his head. _

_Letting out cries of frustration, I ground the banana into mush and buried it. It felt like the Doctor had slept for hours, our time draining away, when suddenly—_

,.,.,.,.,

I took one step at a time through a ballroom filled with people all wearing masks. The chaos of colors and inhuman faces briefly brought to mind a song from Phantom of the Opera, but there was no coordination: Every couple seemed to be twirling in their own dance, not bothering with me or anyone else. At first. In my woozy state, I didn't think to wonder how I got there.

Too many of the masks were awful. Some were bony, mimicking skulls. Many had beaks, but no two the same shape—short, long, wide, narrow. A few masks were so beautiful I caught my breath. But all were savage.

Everyone in the ballroom wore a mask except me. I'd never felt so exposed. It was as if I had been naked, instead of wearing a ballgown so white and silver it rivaled the high-hovering lights in their twisted chandeliers.

Next to this elegant dress with its puffed sleeves and bell skirt, the dancers around me in their rainbows and skulls should have looked tacky or gaudy. They did, but I knew I was misplaced, and so did they, safe in their disguises.

Nowhere to hide, but I looked. The walls seemed to grow outward as I circled the ballroom. I caught distorted glimpses of myself in the mirrors that lined it. Many diamonds adorned my ears and my neck, adding pressure that somehow seemed natural to wear. I could feel my hair loose and long, brushing my back, but it was wound out of my face with more silver in leaves and swirls.

Loud laughter made me look over my shoulder in fear. The music swept over me as if trying to calm my heartbeat, and I took a deep breath. In the midst of all these people acting strangely to each other—treating each other as if they might turn out to be animals instead of humans—I was looking for someone, a very specific someone. I _needed _to find him, it was _so_ very important...

I scanned the faces of everyone I saw, but nobody felt right. They all looked at me like I might turn out to be an animal as well, and when I didn't return the look, they laughed mockingly. I wasn't safe amongst them... I needed to be safe... I needed to find the someone because he was Safe...

One person was set off by empty floor around him. My eyes immediately drew to his black mask with its tapering horns. And to the certainty… almost the hope… that he was looking at me, too.

He removed his mask, and there he was! Jareth, smiling so slightly I wondered if he really had. For that moment, we could have been alone in the room. I tried to get closer to the only person who wasn't laughing at me.

Someone danced between us, and he disappeared.

The others crowded in on me again. I needed to find Jareth again. Something about him, and his unmasking, promised to keep me safe. Jareth was the one I was looking for...wasn't he? Of course he was. Who else would there be?

Some of the costumed people weren't dancing, but holding out sparkling trays with things to eat and to drink. One set a box in front of my feet that I nearly tripped over. The lid sprang open like a jack-in-the-box, releasing a goblin face, and the dancers around me laughed.

I drew back sharply just before it dissipated into sparks. I realized then that the laughter wasn't at the party trick, but at me. They looked at me as if I was child. I _was_ a child. A stupid little girl playing dress-up and pretending she's a grown-up.

A few had joined hands and mocking reached out for me. Embarrassed, I tried to ward off these attacks and passed them by. _Jareth, Jareth, Jareth for safety._

The more I tried to get away from the other guests, the more self-conscious I became. Why was I the only one running instead of dancing? Why couldn't I find a quiet place?

Agitation made my eyes sting, but I wouldn't let myself cry in front of all those scoffers. Everyone was staring. I threw up my hands to keep them away.

And then a dancer rotated toward me, watching in a protective way, and released his partner.

My urgency almost became a gasp of relief when I saw Jareth. He smiled, really smiled at me, and effortlessly parted the crowd. I was fixated until he took my waist. Putting my hands on his shoulder and arm felt too natural to be coincidence.

"There's such a sad love deep in your eyes," he sang. "A kind of pale jewel, open and closed within your eyes. I'll place the sky within your eyes."

The way he sang to me was almost enthralling. He started to spin me, and our eyes never left each other. I saw the blue streaks in his hair, his glittering blue suit and ruffled cravat. And I couldn't help but notice that he smelled faintly of peaches.

For a moment, the couples around us seemed to jeer more now that we were together. But Jareth's hand pressed my back, as if to say that the two of us could take all of them on.

"There's such a fooled heart beating so fast, in search of new dreams... a love that will last..."

His voice kept going, but I was no longer listening. Those words were echoing in my head. _A love that will last... was he offering that? _I was mulling over this when the people drifted away, no longer waiting for something between us.

I had relaxed to hear them start their own conversations instead of eavesdrop on Jareth's singing, when I caught a snatch of said conversations.

"My dear, you dance with such grace."

_Grace, _I thought. _Grace__, I used to know somebody called Grace, didn't I?_

I couldn't remember—no. I didn't _want _to remember. It hurt.

"As the pain sweeps through, makes no sense for you. Every thrill had gone, wasn't too much fun at all."

I smiled slightly. That's what I liked about when Jareth sang: he seemed to know just what I was feeling. He was right, it didn't make sense.

Then I frowned. What had he meant about the thrill being gone? Thrill from what?

"But I'll be there for you as the world falls down."

Almost to match the words he was singing, he dipped me. I sighed in contentment…until I saw what looked like a white Converse shoe against the wall. I gasped.

Seeming to sense this, he jerked me up and pressed harder into my back. I glanced up at him, every intention of saying, "Oi", but the instant my eyes met his, I forgot. I got lost in a sea of pale blue.

As if trying to jolt me out of a trance, he suddenly spun me through the crowd. It was so exhilirating, I couldn't help but throw back my head and laugh out of sheer joy. When I looked back to Jareth, he was smiling at me, but there was a hidden emotion behind his eyes. Something I couldn't quite identify. It wasn't happiness, it was something that gave me goosebumps. Nobody had ever looked at me like that before. I didn't know whether to be happy or unnerved by it, but he didn't give me time to decide.

"I'll paint you mornings of gold, I'll spin you Valentine evenings," he sang. "Though we're strangers 'till now, we're choosing the path between the stars." With one gloved hand, he gently tilted my head up towards his. "I'll lay my love between the stars."

I suddenly became very aware of how _very _close he was. And he seemed to be getting closer. The smell of peaches grew stronger. I knew what he was going to do, and I wasn't altogether unwilling.

I began to close my eyes, for no other reason than that is what one does in these circumstances, and heard a faint voice calling my name. Urgently, as if it was warning me. I turned my head sharply, scanning the wall just opposite us. As I did, I thought I saw a flash of brown against the pure white backround. Once again, a voice was calling my name, and a sob escaped my throat I didn't know I'd been holding.

It was a voice I knew, a _safe_ voice. The sedating music jarred, like a record skipping.

"Doctor," I whispered.

Like a trigger word, it snapped me out of the almost drugged state I was in. I tried to pull away from Jareth, but his grip tightened on me.

"Tegan!" The Doctor's voice was louder now.

"Doctor!" I called back.

"Tegan, we're coming! Don't give in!"

The people around me began to moan as the dream shattered.

,.,.,.,.,

"_Tegan!" The Doctor bolted into a sitting position, wide-eyed, and seized my shoulders. "I saw Tegan. We need to go _now!"

_,.,.,.,.,.,_

I sat bolt upright, still calling "Doctor!" as if it would do some good. All it really did, of course, was make me want to curl up into a little ball and cry.

I'd never been so horrified by a dream. I'd never been so horrified by _myself _in a dream. I actually felt... something. I wasn't sure what exactly it was. It wasn't happiness, it almost seemed to go deeper than that. Almost as if I would die without it.

I rubbed the tears out of my eyes in an attempt to wake myself up, figuring that this feeling _had _to be the after-effects of the peach. It _had _to.

_The peach, _I thought. _Jareth drugged the peach!_

I looked around and realized that I wasn't in the dining room. I was in a bedroom, similar to the one he'd left me in earlier, except this one had a closet and the bed was grander. Oh, and one more thing. Jareth was there.

He was glowering at me, most likely infuriated because his dream world failed. For a moment, I sat there, afraid of what he might do, but then I became infuriated with _him._ So much so, that I launched myself at him and—

**SLAP!  
><strong>  
>Darn near took his jaw off, too.<p>

"How dare you drug me, mess with my dreams, and then sit there glaring as if I did something wrong!"

Jareth sat there, on the ground next to his chair, with such a look of utter shock on his face. You'd think, with all the excursions he takes into my mind, he would've seen that coming.

But of course, being Jareth, he soon recovered and fixed me with a glare even fiercer than his previous one. "How dare you sla—"

I lunged at him again. This time, he caught my wrists and held me fast. In his defense, he did not pin me down on the ground, which no doubt crossed his mind.

"Let go of me!" I grunted, vainly attempting to free myself. If anything, he tightened his grip.

"I did want you wanted me to!"

"It never ends with you, does it? What next? You're going to tell me that if I only fear you, love you, and do as you say, you'll be my slave?"

"If only you'd believe it."

I jerked my arms out of his grip and screamed in frustration. "What do you _want_ from me?"

"I want you to believe in me!"

All things considered, this probably shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. "Believe _in_ you?"

"Believe in me and my promises," he said, taking hold of my hands again. "That dream wasn't a dream, or a drug-induced hallucination... it was a promise. That's what I'm offering you."

I looked down, unwilling to meet his eyes. "I don't want that."

"You can't expect me to believe that," he scoffed. "Not after how you acted."

I looked up at him, staring intently at his unusual eyebrows rather than his eyes. "That was you messing with my head!"

"Tegan, Tegan..." he said sadly. Now he was looking away. He seemed to be almost embarrassed. "I... don't have that power over you."

Now it was my turn to scoff. "What do you mean?"

He looked up sharply. "I can create a world inside your head, yes, but I can't control what you do with it. That's up to you."

And I thought, I actually _thought_ about what he said. About how real it all seemed; the fear, the safety and protection he'd radiated, the glorious feeling I'd had when dancing with him, the little jump my heart made when I realized he wanted to...

"The Doctor," I said suddenly as the very thought entered my head. I'm still not sure if it was courage or adrenalin coupled with anger that allowed me to look Jareth in the eye. "If all those feelings were real and mine, then why was I relieved to see the Doctor? Why did I _want_ to see the Doctor?"  
><em><br>Why can't you accept that I don't want you? It's over, you _lost!

I wish, I really wish I hadn't been so careless with my thought.

Jareth lunged towards me so quickly I didn't have time to register what was happening. He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and pulled my face so close to his, I couldn't see anything but his eyes. They were bright and fierce. And I shuddered at the message they sent. I shuddered even harder when his other hand traced down the side of my face.

"My little Tegan Young," he sang softly. "You shouldn't mess with me. I'll ruin everything you are."

Before I could stop it, a tear rolled down my face and onto his thumb. He looked at it strangely and let me go. I scooted away until my back hit the bed against the wall. I leaned against it and wrapped my arms around my knees. We sat in silence for several long moments… and then a seemingly random thought occurred to me.

"How did I get in here?"

Jareth seemed to process this, and then looked at me as if to say, "What?"

"I mean this room," I clarified.

"Oh. I carried you," he said simply.

"You WHAT?"

"I. Carried. You. You were asleep, so I brought you in here," he said in the long-suffering manner of a man who had to deal with somebody who just didn't get it.

"O-kay," I said. "And where, exactly, _is_ here?"

"My room."

"WHAT?" I stood up and began pacing. I could feel Jareth's eyes watching me with every step I took. "You mean I—you _carried _me into—and I _slept _in your—_what?_"

He seemed almost amused by how appalled I was. He began to say something, but a goblin who looked sort of like a character from Muppet Treasure Island came running in. "You Highness! Your Highness!"

Jareth went into Aggressive Goblin King mode.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

"The girl and the man who you said wouldn't make it to the Goblin City?"

"What of them?" Jareth asked suspiciously.

"They're on their way."

"What?" he and I both cried at once.

"Stop them! Call out the guards, all of them!" Jareth shouted. "If they make it to the castle, I'll bog the lot of you! Now, move!"

The poor, abused goblin scurried out.

Jareth stood with his back to me for a minute, then turned slowly to face me. "But what to do with you?" he questioned softly.

Then he seemed to get an idea. He stood up and walked towards me. I cringed slightly and shied away as he got closer. I felt stupid when all he did was offer me his hand. I looked at it for a moment, but didn't take it. He dropped it to his side and sighed. (Have fun with that, if you're reading out loud.)

"You were the most beautiful thing in the room," he said softly. My heart stopped. I looked up sharply, but he was gone.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes at the unfairness of it all.

I sat in the middle of the floor, hugging my knees, a tear hovering on my cheek.

"I hate you, Jareth."

* * *

><p>AN:Credit, applause, and perhaps glomps (or is that just us?) to Pika-la-Cynique of Girls Next Door on deviantArt for letting us pilfer some of the above, even though it's not Jareth/Sarah.

http:/ pika-la-cynique . deviantart . com/

http:/ pika-la-cynique . deviantart . com/ gallery/ 772068? offset=0#

The words "_You shouldn't mess with me/I'll ruin everything you are" _are lyrics from "China Girl" by David Bowie, the guy who plays Jareth, and also an epicly amazing musician/artist. Not one of my favorite songs, but that line seemed applicable to the situation.

Also, the whole "Jareth as the Anti-Doctor" is not the set-up for a Doctor/Tegan ship, although Jareth is certainly coming from a "romantic" position. *sigh* Stupid Jareth.


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter Eight_

_It seemed as if we were instantly running again. As we tried to find our guides, the Doctor told me what he had seen in Tegan's fantastic dream-world, and definitely did _not _mention Hoggle._

_Finally I had to stop dead, resting my hands on my knees. Pushing my fears aside for acute horror, I said, "Hold up! Jareth had _what _contact with Tegan's lips?_"

_"They didn't_ actually _kiss," the Doctor said, but with a frustrated "You never thought this might happen until now?" look. _

_"He's not gonna try to...marry her or anything, is he?"_

_"Well, I don't know, Grace. Let's leave her with him for a couple of years and find out!"_

_Once again, it hit me how bad things were. That was the first time he'd used my proper name since we met him._

_"Why didn't you pull Tegan out?" I panted._

_"Don't you think I tried? I couldn't! I couldn't move or speak because I wasn't real."_

_"You were there, weren't you?"_

_"Well, yes, but just because something's there doesn't mean it's real!_"

_I stopped to consider this. "True that."_

_"In the world that Jareth has concocted for Tegan, neither of us exists. He's only able to do that because she's beginning to doubt that we're coming at all. It made me realize what's going on, got me out of there alive and existent—which, in this context, is not exactly the same thing."_

_We stopped running so we could skirt around the heaps of trash reaching toward the sky. "You said you met him at ninety," I gasped._

_"Give or take. You expect me to tell you my real age?" he snapped._

_That should have given me pause. Was I "supposed" to know the Doctor's age? But oh well, it didn't._

_"Jareth must be ancient_._ What's he doing with a teenager? Why is he so young?" I panted._

_"He only ages if he leaves the castle, so he hasn't gained many years," the Doctor returned. Even his chest was heaving now. "The castle's sort of outside… Well, it's a little like the TARDIS in the vortex. Time passes, but it's only measured outside, in the Labyrinth. He won't age; Tegan won't. Thirteen hours in the Labyrinth won't compare for her. Five minutes, five centuries—it doesn't matter in there."_

_"Time without consequences?" I murmured._

_"Yes, I like that," he said with a weak smile._

And that was another great idea on your part, _I thought._

_How long had we been running? Not here, in this junkyard, but the whole Labyrinth? I was sick of going nowhere._

_Actually, we had finally gotten somewhere, but the junk was almost piled so high I would have missed it if a voice hadn't called out to us:_

_"My lady? Good physician? Are you all right?"_

_And, "Grrace? Doctor?"_

_"Didymus!" the Doctor cried. We tripped around the nearest stack._

_"Fair friends, thank goodness thou art safe at last!" Didymus said, which I took to mean they had looked for us._

_"Grrace back," Ludo said, smiling._

_"Thanks, Ludo," I said, taking his hand. "I never really left. The Doctor had a… well…" How was I going to explain what had happened?_

_"Hoggle betrayed us," the Doctor summed up shortly._

_Ludo looked downcast. I felt terrible too, as if I'd done something wrong by liking Hoggle at last._

_Briskly, Didymus urged Ambrosius to a trot, leading the way through the junkyard. "Well, cheer up. We're almost there. Look!"_

_We rounded a heap, and I finally saw them: gates, double wooden doors set in a round stone, bounded by wall. "Are those the gates to the goblin city?"_

_Didymus nodded._

_"We don't have much time left," the Doctor whispered, eyeing the sleeping guard. "If we can sneak in—"_

_"Ambrosius, forward!" Didymus ordered at the top of his lungs._

_"Shhh!" the Doctor and I chorused, eyeing the sleeping guard. "Sir Didymus, quietly!" I hissed._

_Didymus barked up to the guard, "Open up! Open up right now!"He rapped the door._

_"Please, Didymus, you'll wake him!" the Doctor whispered fiercely._

_"Well, let them all wake up!" Didymus had a wildfire in his eyes now._

_"Quiet," rumbled Ludo._

_But Didymus took hold of the helmet and shouted into it (we collectively flinched), "I shall fight you all to the death!"_

_"Please, for my sake," I said, taking Didymus's small shoulders, "Sir Didymus, shut up!"_

_Didymus blinked and looked at me. "But of course. For thee, anything."_

_Then the Doctor blinked. "How did you two get on such good terms?"_

_"I'm a _lady,_" I said, drawing up pompously. "Obviously." When I bit back a giggle, the Doctor smiled._

_"I'm not a coward?" Didymus asked plaintively._

_"You're brilliant, you are!" said the Doctor convincingly._

_Didymus missed the point. "Then I shall fight anyone, anywhere, any place, anytime!"_

_"Believe me, we _all_ know that." The Doctor put his finger on his lips. "Now hush."_

_I thought of Tegan's frequent "Hush, you!", and my hands started to tingle with anticipation. "We're nearly there! Can we hurry?"_

_"Yes, but quietly," the Doctor reiterated._

_Ludo heaved open the doors. Once we were inside, I saw goblin houses just beyond. _

_"Ambrosius, be quiet now," Didymus muttered. "I don't see why we have to be so quiet. It's only a goblin city."  
><em>  
><em>"There you have it," I said.<em>

_SLAM!_

_"Oh—crap!" That was the closest I had ever come to swearing._

_First the gates behind us closed and spikes sprang up; second, a huge metal gate before us fell down between us and the city. But the metal gate wasn't half as scary as the humongous _metal monster that stepped out of it like a cutout and grabbed an equally monstrous ax.__

_"What is that?" I breathed as the giant raised its ax._

_Ludo growled, linked me under his arm, and dodged the ax for the both of us. Dust flew in our eyes. _

_"Who goes?" the giant boomed._

_"Friends of Jareth!" I heard the Doctor yell. The ax pounded in his direction, vibrating under my feet. I thought I heard him blow air and mutter, "Worth a try!"_

_Another "Grr!" from Ludo. I wiped the dust out of my eyes and tried to leap and marvel at the same time—I mean, really, the robot was magnificent. Burnished all over, red-eyed, horned, more steam-punk than Cyberman. And oh so dangerous. _

_"Who goes?" it thundered again, swinging wildly and aimlessly._ It can't see us,_ I realized._

_"Watch out!" the Doctor cried to Didymus, who promptly jumped (or fell?) off his steed. Ambrosius high-tailed it._

_"Ambrosius!" Didymus gasped._

_"Duck!" I yelled as a horizontal swing almost decapitated me and headed for him._

_He did, just barely, and resumed scolding. "Will you come here?" _

_Honestly, I don't think anyone cared about Ambrosius at that moment. Especially not me, as my eyes traveled along the wall above the metal gate. "Oh, Doctor! Ludo! Didymus!"_

_"Huh?" said Ludo._

_"Ambrosius, come here right now!" interrupted Didymus. (We ignored him, and so did Ambrosius.)_

_I pointed and waved furiously, confused and somehow vastly happy. "It's Hoggle!" _

_"Yah!" Hoggle yelled, jumping from the wall to the robot's shoulder and wrenching off its head. The hollow of the neck revealed a goblin with joysticks and other controls. It was like something out of Scooby Doo, but bigger and scarier._

_"Aah!" squealed the goblin. The very tiny goblin, might I add. Much tinier than Hoggle. He continued to squeal as Hoggle easily yanked him out of the robot with the battle cry, "Bombs away!"_

_No one caught the robot-controller, by the way. He sprawled and muttered, "How rude!" but it came out a little more like, "How wude!" _

_Ludo pulled a fearsome face at him. "Grr!" The goblin shrieked and scurried, not that I blamed him._

_In the meantime, Didymus was still pleading with his dog. "Please come. You're embarrassing me."_

_"My turn now!" Hoggle said, taking the seat in the neck. "How do you drive this?"_

_"Get him to drop the ax!" the Doctor yelled, his hands over his head as if to protect himself from involuntary haircut._

_Believe it or not, I had completely forgotten that the ax was still swinging. See how easily a person gets used to life with the Doctor?_

_"I'm trying!" Hoggle replied. He began to pull out joysticks and levers and wires, damaging the robot from the inside._

_"Come here at once," Didymus ordered Ambrosius, whistling through his teeth._

_"Oh, just give it up!" I grabbed Didymus and pulled him out of the way as the malfunctioning robot began to stagger toward us._

_"Oh, where's the reverse?" Hoggle cried._

_The robot began to spark, out of control. "Get out of there, Hoggle!" I called. _

_"Abandon ship! Yahhhhh…." Hoggle jumped. First I felt as if I was watching slow-mo. Then he landed less than gracefully on the pavement._

_The robot froze, the red light in its eyes dying. "Lucky," Ludo grunted._

_"A bit anticlimactic, actually," the Doctor mused. "I was expecting a crash, maybe a chance to shout, 'TIMBERRR!'"_

_I glared at him, running to Hoggle's side. "Are you all right?"_

_He was doing his best to bury his face in the floor. "I'm not asking to be forgiven," he said deliberately, obviously trying to sound indifferent. "I ain't ashamed of myself. Jareth made me give you that banana, Doctor. I don't care what you think. I told you I was a coward, and I ain't interested in being friends."_

_I glared even harder at the Doctor, nudged him, and was suddenly surprised to find a gentle smile on his face. All of us had come far since the fairy-spraying and dislike at first sight._

_"We forgive you, Hoggle," the Doctor said softly._

_"You—you do?" Hoggle stammered._

_"And I commend you." Didymus smiled. "Rarely have I seen such courage. You are valiant, Sir Hoggle."_

_"Huh… I am? Did you call me sir?"_

_"Uh-huh." Ludo's small eyes blinked tenderly. "Hoggle and Ludo friends."_

_"We are?"_

_"And that's the word of a Rocksinger! Oh, uh…" I blushed and unhooked his cloth pouch, setting it on the stone. "Here are your things, Hoggle. I never should have taken them, but thank you for all your help. You _did_ give it."_

_Hoggle jumped up, leaving his pouch untouched. _Never forget how powerful forgiveness is, Grace._ "What are we waiting for? Let's get that rat who calls himself Jareth!"_

_The Doctor clapped his shoulder, grinning maniacally. "Music to my ears, Hoggle!"_

_"Ambrosius, it's safe now. Nothing to be afraid of," Didymus coaxed, and finally got Ambrosius to appear and let him mount._

_We raced around the frozen robot and through the remains of the gate into the goblin city, which was composed of cool, Burton-esque houses. I would have wanted to draw them some other time. The houses seemed to be the only things, and nothing stirred, except—_

_"Argh!" Hoggle yelled, nearly tripping as we ran._

_The shape that had leapt from behind a building meowed and sauntered off. "Ah," Hoggle coughed, picking up the speed again. "Nothing to see here. Deserted, ain't it?"_

_We kept running for the castle. "What did I say earlier? Piece of cake!" said the Doctor._

_Cackling interrupted him, and goblins sprung out over the rooftops, lining the walls and the houses and all carrying weapons. _

_"Company, halt!" a commanding goblin hollered. Down the street, goblins seated on upright, leathery lizards trotted to a stop. The steeds were as tall as I was, with flat, sickly green turtle's faces and yellowish bellies._

_"Lancers, ready!" They leveled their lances at us._

_Another party rolled a cannon down the other street flanking us. _

_"And what did I say? 'Doesn't look that far,'" I responded to the Doctor, angrily. "We both should learn to keep our mouths shut."_

_"Cannon, fire!" the command goblin cried._

_"Run! Duck! Weave!" the Doctor cried._

_"As always!" I growled, throwing myself behind a dry fountain._

_"Ambrosius, turn about!" Didymus ordered._

_I looked around at two side streets, little more than paths that looked empty. I pointed to the left. "Quick, this way!"_

_"No_, this _way!" the Doctor contradicted and he and Ludo ran down the right._

_"All right, that works too." I started to hasten toward them, but Didymus yelled, "CHARGE!", and Ambrosius reared in front of me._

_Then the dog wheeled around and charged._

_"No, not that way!" said Didymus._

_"Doctor, Didymus is going the wrong way," I panted._

_"The battle's behind us!" I heard the fox say as they disappeared into the gap between two alleys._

_"I'm going after him," I added, breathless, and spun on my heel._

_"Garace, don't!" the Doctor cried._

_I stopped against the wall for a second's breath. _

_"Charge, charge, charge!" the goblin army called. The foot soldiers cut me off, and the lancers seemed to be circling 'round. "Too late, I have to," I called apologetically, and chased after Didymus and Ambrosius._

_I seemed to run for at least five minutes down a one-path gap until it came out into an alley and actually spotted my quarry. And heard him: "Ambrosius, can we please talk about this? Sit!"_

_I leaped over a barrel and caught up. "Didymus!"_

_"Lady Grace!" Didymus swiveled his neck. "Ambrosius was just about to turn around."_

_"It's no good; we're already separated," I tried to say, trying to keep up a run next to them._

_He hissed in the dog's ear, "Or I will never feed him again!"_

_Ambrosius did screech to a stop, but not for Didymus. For the lizard-mounted goblins blocking our way._

_"That's better," said Didymus imperturbably._

_I stared at him, thinking, _I should have thought this through… Should have listened to the Doctor…

_And I managed to grin. "Which of us is the damsel in distress?"_

_Didymus surveyed the troops that had hemmed us, slowly backing us up against a house. "Don't worry," he said calmly. "I think we've got them surrounded."_

_I burst into hysterical laughter._

_,.,.,.,.,., _

I stayed in the middle of the floor for a long time, trying not to think about Jareth. It didn't work.

You know the really sick thing about... you know, that last thing he said? I actually _liked _hearing it.

I hated myself for liking it, and I hated him more for saying it, but nobody had ever... told me that before. At least, not that I can remember.

I got up and walked over to the balcony, fed up with thinking. I appeared to be on a lower floor than I'd been earlier, I couldn't see as much of the labyrinth. In fact, what I saw seemed to be small city just outside the castle. And it looked for all the world as though there was a _battle_ going on. Hundreds of ugly little creatures scurried around, some with armor, some without. All carrying vicious-looking weapons. And they were all out hunting the Doctor and Grace. Well, presumably.

I wondered how close they were. _Jareth's been gone for a while, could that be because the Doctor and Grace are almost here? _ _Of course not! _I told myself. _Jareth wouldn't be stupid enough to leave me alone if the Doctor and Grace were right outside the castle._

It never occurred to me that Jareth really wasn't stupid enough to leave me alone in room that had a fairly obvious door anyway, although if it had, things probably would've turned out very differently. As it was, I decided to run away again, not realizing that I was doing exactly what Jareth had expected me to do.

Stupid Tegan.

,.,.,.,,.,.

_"Rrrr… Tally ho!"_

_Growling, Didymus and lancer charged each other. Didymus managed to unseat the goblin. "Ha ha ha!"_

_I raised my fist for a cheer, until Ambrosius run under a low ceiling that knocked Didymus off his triumph and his steed with a long "aaaah" sound. I ran to help Didymus out of the dust as Ambrosius ran into the house to our back and slammed the door shut behind him. _

_"Ambrosius, you coward!" howled Sir Didymus._

_"Thus the Labyrinth doth make cowards of us all," I muttered. "Hamlet, slaughtered edition."_

_The goblins started to guffaw._

_"Ambrosius, unlock this door!" Didymus shrilled._

_I sank against it. "Didymus, can't you get him to listen? How does a dog even _lock_ a door without thumbs?"_

_A colorfully-dressed goblin tapped me on the shoulder with his spear. "Yeah? What do _you_ want?" I snarled, swelling. "I haven't come this far to get teased by—"_

_"Huh!" Didymus interrupted, turning and brushing the speak neatly away. "Had enough, have you? All right, throw down your weapons, and I'll see that you're well-treated."_

_This seemed to unbalance the goblin just a little. For a moment, I held my breath and actually thought it might work. Then the goblin barked, "All right, get 'em!"_

_"Eep!" Didymus and I scrabbled for handholds on the house wall and managed to get onto a ledge. "Plan, plan, who's got a plan?" I said under my breath as the goblin rabble yipped at our feet. A spear poked my shin, and I kicked it down._

_"Don't…worry…my…lady," Didymus panted. "I can see they're weakening!"_

Is today a good day to die? _I wondered, looking out over the darkening rooftops. And something I saw made my ears perk, made me think: _Oh, but it's a better day to live!

_A rock-song came out of the red giant poking his head out a high, precarious chimney. Loads and loads and loads of rocks rolled down the alley, into our attackers, and completely swept them away like bowling pins. The rocks kept thundering through for a full thirty seconds._

_"Next time," said Didymus to the empty street, hopping off the wall and extending his hand to support me (ha), "surrender."_

_We began running in the general direction of the castle, leaving Ambrosius behind. My stride being longer than Didymus's, he rode on my shoulders. The streets of the goblin city were in chaos. _

_"Good grief," cried the commander of one group trying to face down few knee-high stones. "Steady men, steady! Hold your ground!"_

_I heard Ludo continue to sing, although I could no longer spot him. A boulder just his size rolled toward the trembling troop._

_"Okay, I take it back!" the goblin squawked. "Run for your lives!"_

_They obeyed, and I neatly leaped over the knee high rocks and moved along. "Amazing."_

_We turned another street. Maybe direction is my sixth sense instead of fashion, because next we heard an angry goblin pounding on a door. "I've had enough and I want to go to bed. Get out of my house!"_

_And Hoggle's head came out the door, letting him in. "Let's go," he said over his shoulder, and out of the pile came the Doctor and Ludo. _

_A cannon fired into the wall, shaking it. The goblin screamed, and the Doctor dodged, calling with relish, "Whoa, Nellie!"_

_"Ha ha, missed," blurted Hoggle._

_"Fire!" screeched the goblin at the cannon._

_"Take cover!" I called, ducking with my arms over my head and Didymus's._

_Two things happened at once. I consider one significantly more important than the other. 1) A rock fell on the cannon and crushed it. 2) The other three saw us, and their faces lit up._

_"Brother!" bellowed Ludo._

_"Coming! Hi-ho, silver!" Didymus ordered, spurring me lightly._

_On a normal day I would've OIed like Donna, but I didn't even notice, because the Doctor (and here's the thing I consider the most important) called out my name with a huge grin. "GARACE!"_

_I flew into a quick hug. "Do you forgive me yet?"_

_He patted my back. "Of course I do. Come on, this way!"_

_We ran to the right. The gates of the castle (not the city, the actually castle, finally!) loomed in sight._

_Two goblins leaped in front of us around a pedestal for some long-crumbled statue. "Now we have you."_

_The Doctor clicked his tongue, making a face. "Terribly sorry." He pointed to the pedestal. "Now you don't."_

_Their jaws dropped when they looked up, and I couldn't help laughing. They were standing in the shelter of a rock that, against all the laws of gravity and physics, balanced on the edge like a clumsy ballerina. _

_The goblins held up their hands and backed off slowly. "Hey, no problem."_

_The Doctor bowed. "Thank you very much. I repeat, this way!"_

_We clambered up the steps to the huge doors. Ludo seamlessly heaved them open so we could flow right through into the castle._

_Garbage cluttered the floor where goblins had thrown down their amusements to battle us. The round room seemed deserted at first. Until the Doctor pointed to an archway._

_"Gahnn!" I jumped to see the Goblin King silhouetted against the stairwell, smiling to himself._

_"You've run so long, you've run so far," he sang to us. The random singing distracted me from his next words. "Too late, Time Lord."_

_He laughed, as if he was really enjoying himself. We could have been delivering a wedding cake. And suddenly he whirled, his long, glittering cape enveloping him and whisking him up the stairwell faster than humanly possible. Poof!_

_"There he goes!" I screamed, pointing. The Doctor cut me off with a clip on the ear._

_"Really, Garace?"_

_"But I wanna charge!" I cried, hopping up and down. "C'mon, he—"_

_"Could be anywhere by now," he finished. "We're looking for Tegan, not him, although I'm sure the two will come together."_

_"Well then, come on." Hoggle began to stump for the doorway, but the Doctor caught his shoulder._

_"I have to face him alone."_

_I set Didymus on the floor. "_We _have to face him alone," I told him._

_"Why?" he asked blankly. Ludo looked crestfallen._

_"Yeah, why?" barked Hoggle._

_"That's—the way it's done, just trust me," the Doctor said in surprise, halting in our walk for the stairs._

_Didymus sighed, taking off his hat. "If that's the way it's done, then that's the way you must do it. But should you need us…"_

_I threw a glance over my shoulder. "We'll call."_

_"Don't even start," Hoggle brushed us off roughly, rolling his eyes._

_Ludo moved five times faster than his bulk should have allowed and towered in our way. Bringing down a heavy paw on my shoulder, he raised me into a monstrous side-hug. "Still help Grrace and Doc-tor find friend!"_

_Ludo set me down, and I looked from one friend to another. Ludo wanted to save my friend as I'd saved him. Didymus thrived on quests and sweeping away anything less than nobility. For Hoggle, once-coward but through with bullying, it was personal. _

_"Doctor…I think… they're committed," I wheezed._

_The Doctor's face softened for one second, his eyes crinkling, before contention stole over it again. "That's probably all we need. Jareth's only human, after all. It's go time!"_

_,.,.,.,.,.,_

I ran through the doorway, and stopped abruptly. Before me was a vast stone hall, with so many staircases, balconies, windows, and doorways at different heights and odd angles to each other that I had no idea what was up or down, near or far, inside or out, backward or forward. No doubt, Jareth's intention. The room seemed to go on forever in all directions. There were stairways that led up to the ceiling and doorways in the floor and walls. In fact, the whole thing was making me dizzy. And angry.

"This is _so_ not fair, Jareth!" I screamed at the pointless staircases and the deathtrap doorways.

I listened to his name echo a dozen times around the room, then fell to the floor, all hope officially lost. At least, for a moment.

A call seemed to reach my ears on the third or fourth echo. "Tegan?"

"Grace!" I hollered back, and because I was standing on what could reasonably pass for ground, I started to run.

Grace's voice had sounded so far away, but I found her in minutes and threw myself at her, the force of my hug practically knocking her over.

She forced me at arm's length and gaped as if she'd never expected to see me again and had to drink in the sight.

"I've missed you so much," she gasped—then looked over her shoulder. "We did it!"

That's when I noticed the rescue party.

"The Doctor isn't here yet," Grace apologized at a hundred miles an hour. "Topsy-Turvy Town here's been a nightmare. First we got stuck in a door and had to wriggle free; next we had to split up. The Doctor and Sir Didymus are somewhere around. I keep thinking the Goblin King must have put his castle in a blender!"

I didn't hear a word. I kept blinking at the giant maw on the creature who had just taken Grace's hand in its.

"This is Ludo." Grace finally caught her breath. "Screw the Goblin King; Rocksingers are where it's at."

I realized that "Ludo" was smiling. He was so ugly, he was stinkin' adorable. I smiled back at him.

"Grace friend, Tegan friend. Ludo get more." A small "aww" escaped my mouth.

"And this is Hoggle," Grace continued, gesturing to the small man next to her. And just like that, my smile faded.

"I see," I mumbled. "Taking prisoners now, are we, Grace?"

"What? No—what? What are you talking about?"

"I saw him talking to Jareth! He was gonna do something to the Doctor!"

"Oh. That."

I gaped at her.

"He's something of a quintuple agent. He's one of us… people. Now."

I glared at the… person in question. "Is he, now?"

"I ain't gonna ask forgiveness from you," Hoggle grunted. "I already got it from them."

"Oh, well, I guess that makes everything hunky-dory, then!" I said sarcastically. "Shall we all have a garden party? And not invite Jareth!"

Grace gave me the weirdest look. "…Are you okay? You're not acting like… yourself."

I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes, as if hoping that everything would make sense when I opened them again.

"Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm not well-versed in the long-term psychological ramifications of being stolen off a Time and Space ship by somebody who calls himself a king of goblins, having a group of creatures try to pull your head off, being rescued from them by said Goblin King who apparently moonlights as an owl, and being fed a hallucinogenic peach which causes you to dream about waltzing with the Goblin King." I paused for breath. "How about you?"

Grace suddenly looked like she'd been run over by a train. "You wouldn't believe what I've been through," she half said, half sighed.

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or not, and judging by Grace's expression, neither was she. We looked at each other, silently agreeing that once we were back, safe in the TARDIS, there would have to be a mutual exchange of stories.

It suddenly struck me full of hope. I could seriously think about getting back on the TARDIS and flying away. So far away._ I really,_ really _don't want to be here anymore_, I thought.

"Such a pity," said a painfully familiar voice behind me. And just like that, my heart dropped, and all my hope with it.

Grace and I turned around. Jareth was standing on a ledge a few feet away. "How you've turned my world, you _precious _thing," he sang, jumping off the ledge and landing gracefully in front of us. "You starve and near exhaust me."

"Doctor!" shouted Grace, grabbing my hand and squeezing it as though she thought I'd disappear if she let go.

Jareth smirked. With surprisingly little effort, he separated Grace and me, pushing her to the floor and spinning himself so he was between us. "Everything I've done, I've done for you!" he sang accusingly, circling me. "I move the stars for no one!"

"Don't you get it?" I shouted. "I never asked you to move the stars! I never _wanted_ you to move the stars! All I wanted was to be set free, which is what I asked for, and which you took to mean, 'Create worlds inside my head!'"

"You can't lie to me, Tegan," he said. "You've forgotten, I can see into your head. I can see things you can't."

Grace tried to get up behind him, but with a wave of his hand, he sent her sliding across the room.

"Stop that!" Ludo growled, but when he tried to bat Jareth over the head, Jareth twisted both hands. Ludo fell over a ledge that hadn't been there a moment ago. Grace shrieked.

There was a low howl. "Grrraaace?"

Grace flung her head upside down to see. Her hair streamed upward against gravity. "He's standing upside down!" She started trying to beckon him back over.

I was relieved that neither of them was hurt, but I was more curious about what Jareth was getting at. After all, he'd just told me that he knows more about me than I do. I could see Hoggle out of the corner of my eye, screwing up his courage as obviously as he could. I ignored him.

"What are you talking about?"

Hoggle broke in. "You won't be able to get rid of me as—"

Jareth waved a hand at Hoggle as though he was a fly, never breaking his intense stare at me.

"Hop along, Froggle. Your greatest fear isn't Saxon, whatever that means to you. It's ending up alone. It's being left behind while all your loved ones move on with their lives. Maybe that's how you were able to leave your family without a second thought or even a first thought."

I was stunned. I'd never thought of this before, but as I looked over my life and the things that upset me most... he was right. Hoggle took the silence as a break in the conversation, and tried again. "I ain't scared of—"

"He said run along, Dobby!" I shouted, unaware of the Harry Potter reference I'd just made. I was a little preoccupied.

"But it's not just a fear, is it?" Jareth began circling me again. "It's more of a belief."

"Stop it," I said, my voice low and dangerous.

"It's not that you're afraid this might happen. You're certain it will."

"Stop it," I tried again, but my voice cracked.

"Because you truly believe that nobody thinks you're worth the effort to stay in your life."

"I said stop it!" I whirled around to face him, tears beginning to stream down my face. He jumped forward and took my hands in his, willing me to believe this.

"Ack!" Hoggle squawked. I rather think Jareth the Siren had shattered his worldview.

"But haven't I proven that's not true? Doesn't the fact that I came for you and have fought so hard to keep you here prove that somebody thinks you're worth the effort?"

I wouldn't meet his eyes. It was as if my mind had split in two. There was a part of me who wanted _so desperately_ to believe what he was saying. But there was another part, a part that led my eyes to Grace, who had Ludo's hairy arm in her grip as they inched back over the ledge.

A voice said, "He's not the only one."

I started for a moment, thinking my inner voice had gotten really loud, but then I turned around. The Doctor was standing on a staircase over our heads, what looked like a fox with an eye patch behind him. He looked at me for what seemed like a long time, then switched his gaze to Jareth. "And while we're on the subject of lying," he said cheerfully, jumping down and sauntering towards us, "have you told her about the Briealiate?"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

It was as though every inch of my body had been holding its breath, and now that the Doctor was here, they could breathe again. _Everything's gonna be all right, everything's gonna turn out all right._

I wiped the tears off my face to make room for new ones. (I seemed to cry at everything by this point.)

"How fares the lady?" questioned the fox, in a squeaky but nevertheless posh voice. Think about those two words for a moment: fox and voice.

"Uh…" I struggled for words and saluted the Doctor whilst putting on a fake Cockney accent. "Been be'er, boss."

The Doctor smiled sympathetically at me, but now his gaze turned to Jareth.

I deliberately did not turn to Jareth. "So, what's a—a… thingamy?"

"It's how Jareth was watching us in the TARDIS," said Grace, managing to cut around Jareth. "It's how he snatched you right out of Time and space." Her arms went around me from behind in a huge bear-hug, followed by more pressure of a huge Ludo-hug shielding both of us. We stood that way, a stronghold.

I thought back to my first proper conversation with Jareth, where he'd said that he'd been watching us for a while.

"Oh, not just that," said the Doctor, who was full-out glaring at Jareth now, who was most likely returning his glare. "Tegan, has he been able to see inside your head?"

I scoffed. "Constantly."

The Doctor's glare intensified for a moment, then receded. "Like I told Garace, a telepathic link has to be created in order for the Briealiate to show you anything. But once that link is created, there's no stopping it from being used for… other things."

"Like what?" I said, panic and fury starting to billow.

"Confusing your emotions and messing with your dreams."

I can't say I was surprised. What I was, was _freaking ticked._

"Oh, why are we explaining this? Just give us Tegan! It's over; you lost!" Grace demanded.

"Not quite," Jareth murmured. "I gave you a time limit, didn't I, Doctor? All those years ago?"

The Doctor froze, which should've sent up enormous warning signals, but I was reeling from something else.

"What do you mean, all those years ago?" I interrupted. I briefly wondered what the time limit thing was about, but at this moment, I really didn't care.

I was shocked to see the Doctor and Jareth share a wince. Neither one of them wanted to tell me. I'd had enough of this. "Okay, guess what? _You_," here I pointed at Jareth, "are going to start giving me straight answers, starting with your history with the Doctor."

Jareth looked genuinely uncomfortable. I turned to the Doctor, who looked equally uncomfortable. I'd _really_ had enough of this.

"What am I speaking, Swahili?" (Ludo flinched at my shouting.) "_Some_body talk to me!"

"The lady hath fire," said the fox, who I assumed was the Sir Didymus Grace had mentioned, almost approvingly.

Grace ducked under Ludo's arm and stood between the Doctor and Jareth. "Okay, here we go. That guy—" She pointed to the Doctor. "—arrested that guy—" She pointed with her other arm at Jareth. "—when the Doctor was ninety and stupid and _he_ let _him_ take this Briealiate Crystal here with him."

"_Ninety_? That was…" I took a minute to do the math. "…813 years ago!"

Grace took a minute to check my math. "Uh, yep. But there's this whole thing with the castle being out of time, so Jareth only ages if he leaves. That's kind of what makes it a prison, I guess."

Oh so many questions._ One thing at a time, Tegs, one thing at a time._ "Why did the Doctor give him the Briealiate?"

"Because Jareth had already made a link with him. That meant he could manipulate the Doctor's emotions about loneliness to make the deal."

"What deal?"

"About the Labyrinth. If someone wanted to go with Jareth, he could take her, and the Doctor would have to solve the Labyrinth… in thirteen hours… to… Oh no." She convulsed as if she would vomit, and I almost wanted to join her. Grace spun toward Jareth. "But we _have_ her!"

"You didn't an hour ago," he answered. "You've been in the Labyrinth fourteen hours."

"Thou spleeny base-court clack-dish!" Didymus yapped.

Nobody in the room had a response to that. Well, nobody except Ludo. "Whaaaat?"

"What I mean is, you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie!"

"No, Sir Didymus," said the Doctor quietly. "No, he doesn't."

"So what does that mean? For me?" I asked just as quietly.

"It means they didn't meet the deadline, and now you're mine," Jareth said in a calm voice. Not triumphant, not relieved. As if he knew this was going to happen all along. I realized with quiet horror that he'd never intended to stop the Doctor, only stall him. Slow him down so he wouldn't make it in time.

How many years had he planned this? 813.

"Why me?"

"I thought I'd already answered that," Jareth said, frowning. He seemed disappointed in me for asking. My questions weren't playing by his rules.

"Not this one. 813 years, you've been watching the Doctor. 813 years of companions, and you choose me in_ two days_. Why?"

"Because we're the same."

"What? We most certainly are not!"

"Yes we are; we are both alone!" He let that sink in for a moment. "No one else was alone."

"He is," I protested vainly, knowing what the response would be.

"No he isn't. He thinks he is, but he isn't." Here he shot a sideways glance at the Doctor.

"Well, neither is she!" said Grace, half-whimpering.

"Oh?" said Jareth, as simply as he ever said anything. "You obviously don't know what Tegan really wants."

"How would you know that? Telepathy only goes so deep," the Doctor interjected. "What people are really looking for, they often don't know themselves. How would you?"

"Because it's the same thing I want." Jareth turned back to me. "Forever."

The thing is, he wasn't that far off. No, that's wrong, he was spot on.

He held his hand out to me, as he'd done so many times.

And I took it.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,

_"One more chance," I said. I could feel everyone's eyes on me even though all I could see was Tegan's hand in Jareth's._

_There was no pleading in my voice, because I knew Jareth didn't give a bog's burp about my pleas. "You cheated when you made the deal. I know the Labyrinth rules aren't fair, but this place started out as the just punishment for your crimes."_

_"You're appealing to the sort of man who gives no second chances?" On the surface, Jareth looked amused._

_"Not exactly," I said quickly. "But back when you cheated, the rules were still fair. So you owe the Doctor one more chance."_ Sort of_, I thought._ All logic here is convoluted_._

_"Be honest, Jareth, you don't really believe you're going to lose," said Tegan, eyeing him in a mischievous way. _Ewwww_, I thought._

_Jareth twirled his free hand, and a crystal appeared. A second later I realized he wasn't holding it; it was hovering centimeters from his fingertips. The crystal spun and changed from one into several, and the several multiplied into many, and every single crystal reflected their joined hands. "One of the crystals in the room," Jareth said, holding them motionless, "is the Briealiate. Find it, Tegan, and I'll let you choose."_

_"Choose what? Be specific, Tegan," the Doctor said, unsure how to relate now that Tegan had chosen the Goblin King._

_"He makes a fair point, Jareth. Choose what?"_

_"Choose… whether or not to stay with me. But I'm doing this for you, so when you can't find it, you'll stop fighting me on_ every turn_!"_

_Tegan sighed. "Fair enough."_

_Jareth clicked his tongue, seeming disappointed. "Don't forget to ask the conditions. The Doctor, you see, isn't allowed to help you."_

_The Doctor stiffened, and I groaned. Jareth had a point; it would just be too easy to let the Doctor point out which crystal was the Briealiate. Even if all the others in the room were identical, he'd know better than we would._

_Jareth eyed the Doctor thoughtfully as he decided how to carry out the restriction. "Expressions like that simply won't do. Do you mind?"_

_Under Jareth's cock-headed stare, the stone under the Doctor's feet slid into a downward ramp that carried the Doctor, then swerved upward and around us. The spiral went over and around us until the Doctor was a figure in the distance. I heard the echo of a groan._

_"Ready, set…" The Goblin King spread out his fingers, and the dancing crystals shot across the room, rolling through the many crooked doorways and up steps and casting light in all directions. Tegan's hand was still within his grasp. He leaned down and planted a kiss on it before releasing it. "Go."_

_Tegan swallowed, completely at a loss. "Well… right then." She squared her shoulders. "Grace, get me as many crystals as you can. We've just gotta find the one that's different, right?"_

_"Sure?" I responded uncertainly, saluting. "Ludo, Sir Didymus, and Hoggle will help too."_

_Didymus bowed, removing his hat. "On my honor as a knight." Ludo just smiled and nodded his great, shaggy head._

_I saw Tegan eye Hoggle warily. "All right. Thanks. C'mon, those are a lot of crystals, no time to waste!"_

_When I took off in one direction, Hoggle came with me. "You should've seen his face when she yelled at me," he said in a low voice._

_I snatched at a crystal that whizzed over my head and missed. Involuntarily, I ended up looking over my shoulder to where Jareth hovered at Tegan's side. She was comparing two crystals. They clinked when she threw them over her shoulder, then rose into the air again._

_I flashed back to the conversation I'd heard while helping Ludo. "You mean, when she called you Dobby?" I replied to Hoggle in the same low tone._

_"That's it." He dove and caught a crystal in his hands, which were rather like baseball mitts now that I noticed them._

_"What about his face?"_

_"He was proud o' her."_

_I paused. Dot, dot, dot. "Oh dear. This really is our last chance. Ow!"_

_Three crystals bowled into my stomach and dropped. I caught them in my skirt just as another came rolling along the ground. I scooped it up too. I raced back to Tegan, leaving Hoggle to catch more._

_She glanced over my first three and dropped them over Ludo's ledge. "Identical!"_

_Ludo had mysteriously managed to gather two armfuls of crystals, which he showered down in front of Tegan. She picked them up two or three at a time and tossed them again._

_"It's useless! They're all the same! Same size, same color…"_

_"Wait—this one's smaller," I said, biting my lip and letting Tegan examine the one I'd found on the ground._

_"Are you sure?" She compared it to some others. "You're right! This one must be—"_

_"My lady," piped in Didymous ceremoniously, "I believe I have found what you are looking for." And he proffered a midnight blue crystal, larger than the others._

_Our excitement died down as we looked at the pile of crystals we'd collected. They had risen to knee-height again, and many had changed colors in the different lighting. Hoggle stumped up and added his. It didn't matter that we hadn't looked at them yet; we might as well not have looked at any of them._

_"So now they're all different." Tegan's voice was flat. We had no idea how to test the Briealiate._

_Hoggle snorted, his arms crossed._

_"You know, you could actually _help_," Tegan snapped at him._

_Jareth was leaning against one of the spirals that he'd sent the Doctor away on, and I couldn't help looking at him. He did seem proud of Tegan for her maltreatment of his goblins._

_"I don't like you," Hoggle said frankly. "But I ain't Grace and the Doctor's friend if I doesn't stand up for the thing they spent all that time in the Labyrinth for, see?"_

_"Hoggle, in a twisted way that's very touching," I sighed, struggling to keep my panic down, "but I don't see how you're helping—"_

_Hoggle gave me a piercing look that said, "I'm not talking to you."_

_I shut my mouth._

_"I told Grace over and over," he went on, "but maybe no one told you. If you takes something for granted here, it happens, and you never gets the truth. 'His majesty' don't play fair!"_

_Tegan seemed surprised, but then she glanced at Jareth. Quietly, she said, "No, he doesn't." She looked at the lights of the crystals in the distance. "Wherever the Briealiate is, it'll be so set apart that I won't even consider it…"_

_I too looked for something out of the ordinary in the crystals around us. Some minute detail that would otherwise escape us. I saw Tegan look back at the Goblin King, and her eyes focused on the quartz in his necklace._

_And everything clicked. Quartz._

A crystal.

_"The Briealiate is around your neck," Tegan whispered._

_Jareth's face didn't twitch. After a heartbeat of silence, his fists clenched, and the crystals rolling around us burst in midair like bubbles. The Doctor's spiral whipped back toward us and deposited him between Tegan and me._

_Jareth lifted the necklace over his head and held it out in silence. I heard us—that is, the Labyrinth creatures and me—let out the deep breaths we'd been holding._

_"Why are you giving me this choice?" Tegan asked. Both of her hand closed over it, almost protectively._

_"Oh, I do believe in you," Jareth sang, his voice just over a whisper. You know how when the Doctor's angry he yells, but when he's livid he gets very quiet? That was how Jareth was. Quiet. But his eyes were screaming._

_"What are you waiting for? Just come on!" I cried. Why did this decision require such painstaking thought? "Tegan?"_

_She didn't take her eyes off the Briealiate. "It doesn't matter."_

_"What?" I gasped._

_"It doesn't matter which one I choose—" She held up the necklace, the Briealiate swinging at the middle of the gold triangle on the end."—'cause of this."_

_"We can just take it away. Lose it in the heart of a collapsing galaxy or something?" I suggested._

_"Won't matter. The connection will still exist as long as it does, no matter where it is, and he controls it," said the Doctor, looking at Tegan as thought he was about to say, "I'm so sorry."_

_"It's brilliant when you think about it, though, isn't it?" she asked the Doctor and nobody else. "'Cause in the end, the decision isn't mine. Or Jareth's. It's yours." There was a bitter edge to her voice._

_The Doctor fell silent like the rest of us. Tegan continued._

_"How many lifetimes are you willing to waste retrieving me from a constantly changing Labyrinth? 'Cause Jareth's got _thousands_!" She spat the last word._

_Then I understood why Jareth would give the slightest possibility of escape once he'd won the thirteen hours. He wasn't just cheating by hiding the crystal as, well, a crystal—he was cheating by its very nature. Because every time Tegan got lonely, as long as the two of them lived, he could snatch her away._

_He knew all along that the Doctor couldn't live life rescuing the same companion from the same danger for the rest of his lives. Now that he'd chosen Tegan after so long, there was no hope he'd switch the link to someone else or simply give up. She'd only be free if she was dead._

_She'd only seem free if she chose to stay. And he would still win._

_True love would've given her a true choice._

_Two people were struggling in Tegan's eyes. Her hand holding the necklace shook. She carefully snapped the Brieliate out of the gold pendant and held it in front of her._

_"Your eyes can be so cruel," Jareth sang. "…Just as I can be so cruel."_

_She looked up at him, then turned to the Doctor. "I'm sorry, Doctor." __She turned to me. __"And I'm _so _sorry, Grace."_

_She sounded as though it was taking all the energy she had not to cry more._

_Finally, she turned to Jareth. I buried my face in my hands, unable to watch whatever was about to happen._

_"And perhaps in spite of everything, I am sorry, Jareth," she said. I looked up, confused. "If I were you, I'd get a dog."_

_The last sentence took a second to register. Once it did, I started laughing, not that it was witty: that she was choosing us, even though __I had no idea how we were going to keep her._

_Tegan gave me a weak smile and turned over her hand. As the bit of Briealiate quartz hit the stone and bounced lightly, I could see the Doctor's eyebrows drawing together. He guessed first and started to say, "Tegan, don't—"_

_Tegan stepped on the crystal and ground it under the heel of her sneaker._

_"No!" said the Doctor and Jareth together._


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Can it be? We're alive! And we haven't forgotten you! I'm really sorry for how long it's taken to get this up. It was entirely my fault. I really have no excuse for it, so I offer my humblest apologies, an extra long chapter, and chapter sixteen of Self Insertion Ruled the TARDIS is up as well! And there's something quite exciting in the A/N of that as well. Hope this makes up for the excruciatingly long time between updates! - Sara

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><p>Chapter Ten<p>

_I couldn't think why the Doctor had joined Jareth in protesting. Tegan's stepping on the crystal made sense. She was connected to the crystal. Naturally she'd destroy the crystal._

_She stood over the powder of the Briealiate for a moment, gasping, until invisible pain knocked her to her knees._

"_Tegan?" I ran around Jareth to her. When I tried to pull her to her feet, she started screaming in short but lengthening bursts, leaning on one hand and holding her head. _

_The Doctor pushed both hands into his hair, wide-eyed. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't expect this to happen—" _

"_What's happening?"_

_Jareth answered, his voice dead and flat and disbelieving. "It's killing her. She's connected to the crystal, and it's crushing her too." _

"_Doctor," Didymus said, "can you not heal her?"_

"_He's not that kind of doctor, you idiot," Hoggle hissed in an attempt to be sympathetic to us._

_I fell backward, away from her, and turned straight to the Doctor. Ludo was trying to catch me and hold me, but I kept bucking his paws. "What can we do? Is there any way to repair the crystal before she—?"_

"_Not in time," the Doctor snarled, not at me, not really. "The psychic link is like an unraveling string. We can't repair it without the right tools, and we can't unravel one end without damaging the other—oh! That could—that's—!"He clawed through his hair again. "Oh, my brain, stupid Doctor, don't you see it?" He pounded his bony forehead. "String! What happens when you stretch string?"_

_I swallowed. "It snaps."_

"_And the other end's free as can be! Oh! If we could stretch the link out, get Tegan far enough from here, this link could snap!"_

_I jumped up. "Are you sure?"_

_He looked at me as if for the first time. "Not by a long shot, but the TARDIS could try it!"_

_I felt like he was wringing out my heart. "The TARDIS is at the Labyrinth gate, Doctor! We can't—"_

"_No, but he can!" The Doctor pointed wildly at Jareth and stopped, his skinny body heaving with gulps of air. "Jareth—I'm sorry. But you can stop this. One snap of your fingers could bring the TARDIS and save Tegan's life!"_

_Tegan's screams had petered into whimpers. She was curled in the fetal position, her eyes screwed shut. Blood was beginning to drip out of her ears, and I choked on a shriek. _

_Jareth licked his lips. _

"_Jareth," the Doctor said urgently, "I know you don't care what we say, but Tegan only has a minute left. If that!"_

_Jareth stood over Tegan's shuddering form, looking down at her with an unreadable expression. He stood there a little too long for my taste, and I balled my fists to keep from shouting at him to hurry up. Finally, his eyes filled with resignation and he knelt beside Tegan without touching her. "I—I can't live within you…"_

_He snapped his fingers, and the room filled with the rush and whoosh of the TARDIS. _

_I closed my eyes and remembered to breathe. _Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you_. I knew Jareth wouldn't want to hear it._

_When I opened my eyes again, Jareth was standing, limp Tegan cradled in his arms. "I must know what happens to her," he demanded of the Doctor, who stood in the TARDIS doorway practically ready to kiss it. "You'll bring her back so I can see her, if she lives."_

_The Doctor gave a clipped nod, and Jareth didn't waste time surrendering her. Only when the Goblin King stepped back did I feel free to run into the TARDIS too. The Doctor had gently laid Tegan on the seat and was contorting himself around the console._

_I stopped just inside the doorway and turned around to look at the topsy-turvy room once more. Jareth was out of sight, but I didn't doubt he was still there. Instead, I saw Didymus, Ludo, and Hoggle._

"_I don't know what to say—" I began._

"_Do what you need to do before it's too late!" Hoggle barked. _

_I waved. "Goodbye!"_

"_Graaace…" Ludo said as I closed the TARDIS door._

"_Brace yourself," the Doctor said, and gave me no time to do so. The TARDIS started grinding even before the echoes of the landing had faded. I held onto the rail for dear life and screamed my heart out for all my fear and frustration and pain and suspense and weariness. _

_The TARDIS was still moving. Tegan fell off the seat with the momentum. With the Doctor clinging to the console, no one could catch her. She didn't react as the wind inside the TARDIS whipped her hair around the grating._

_The psychic link stretched and stretched through time and space, and suddenly the TARDIS stopped moving with a loud crack, as if a bone had broken. Tegan bolted upright, gasping. She stared unseeing at me by the door, then looked up at the Doctor._

_He slid to her side. "No pain?"_

_She shook her head mutely._

_As one, the Doctor and I jumped up. As his feet came off the ground, he punched the air, and when I twirled I got the feeling the TARDIS was twirling with me. "Tegan, you're free! You're free!"_

_The Doctor grinned. "He let you go. I never would've expected that to work!"_

_Somehow, with all this celebration, we left Tegan on the floor. It took me thirty seconds to realize her small frame was still heaving._

_And the Doctor, with no ceremony whatsoever, went down next to her, wrapped his arms around her violently shaking shoulders, and lifted her off the floor. I only knew that my best friend was crying, and I was more helpless than I'd been after fourteen hours coming and too late to reclaim her. And now, knowing why she had left us, I copied his example, letting her cry._

_There was one thing we hadn't talked about: how Jareth really got Tegan. Yes, the Briealiate allowed him to create a link, to appear in the TARDIS, and to—to sing or whatnot… But he didn't really kidnap her. I'd seen his rules in the Labyrinth: he fulfilled what people believed, desired, expected._

_Tegan had wanted to leave. She had been lonely, and I—starstruck by the Doctor, drunk on success—had let her be._

_Eventually I put my arms around her too. "I'm sorry," I said. I didn't care that the Doctor could hear. He was probably thinking it. "Please forgive me."_

,.,.,.,.,.,.,

Every single inch of my body hurt.

I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see. I was aware of somebody nearby screaming, and it took me a long time to realize it was me.

Somehow I ended up on the floor, the concrete was rubbing against my cheek.

The only thing I could hear was blood filling my ears. I was beginning to lose consciousness. I couldn't think in complete sentences anymore.

_The Doctor... Where is the Doctor? ... Grace is shouting... about me? ... Jareth... What's Jareth doing? ... Mom... I want my mom... I want my mommy..._

A voice cut through my thoughts, seeming to come as much from inside my head as out.

_I can't live within you..._ I'll never forget it. It seemed to rob me of my ability to think. The words echoed in my head for a long time.

And then the pain stopped. My whole body shook with the effort to breathe. I sat and breathed for a moment until I realized two things. One, I was on the TARDIS floor, and two, I was sobbing.

A pair of strong, safe arms wrapped around me, and I sobbed all the harder.

And I couldn't help but notice... the Doctor never shushed me or told me that everything was all right. I think it's because he understands. He understands that being safe doesn't necessarily make you all right. I think that he understands, better than anyone else, that it takes a long time before you're all right again.

After a while, I heard Grace apologize. Unable to speak, I nodded, which hurt quite a lot.

I had just begun to relax when the Doctor suddenly shouted, "Oh!" which startled me and made my head protest painfully. He jumped up and ran for the console. "I almost forgot."

"Forgot what?" I asked, slightly worried.

Grace groaned, which didn't help. "I can't believe we promised him we'd… go back."

"You _what?_" I shouted, and then promptly groaned and put my head to my hands. I later wondered if this was what a hangover felt like. Although, if it were a real hangover, I'd probably have enjoyed myself a lot more beforehand. This just wasn't fair.

"It's safe, Tegan," the Doctor said, "without the Briealiate. You won't die and he can't get back inside your head. He just wants to know you're alive."

"Then send him a postcard," I quipped darkly.

"Or a puppy," Grace said offhandedly. We paused, then looked at each other and grinned properly for the first time in far too long.

,.,.,.,.,

I stepped out of the TARDIS holding both Grace's and the Doctor's hands. It had taken a lot of convincing to get me to come, but the Doctor finally won. It is very difficult to outtalk him.

We'd landed outside the castle's front gate approximately half an hour after leaving, where a huge, headless, metal monster stood guard.

"What the heck is that?" I shrieked.

Grace looked at it and frowned. "Funny enough, we never asked his name."

"Huh," I said.

As we walked inside and up the stairs, we heard a shrill voice cry, "Don't give up hope!"

"We're not," said a thick, raspy voice that must've been Hoggle.

"We mustn't abandon hope even when all seems bleakest, even when the fair lady is mostly likely cold with death—"

"Didymus, shut_ up_!" Jareth roared.

I stopped, more than slightly unwilling to enter the Escher room again, and Jareth's voice certainly wasn't helping...

The Doctor squeezed my hand reassuringly. I took a slow, deep breath, and we stepped through the door.

The room was a shambles; it seemed that Jareth had taken out all his frustration on anything that couldn't run. It looked as though something very large and very angry had grabbed at the staircases and thrown the pieces at the numerous doorways, which were broken and jagged. Jareth was perched on a broken piece of concrete.

Ludo and Hoggle were sitting on the floor and Didymus was pacing back and forth in front of them, reminiscent of a football coach giving his team a pep talk. I cracked a smile.

Ludo noticed us first, but of course, he only had eyes for... "Grrrrrace!"

Our cover was blown. Everyone looked up, and there was a brief moment of silence. Then, Didymus gasped horrifically.

"Can it be? That specter doth bear the figure of our beloved Tegan and hast dragged the souls of the Fair Grace and Valiant Physician into the depths with it!"

There was a stunned silence. Then Grace burst out laughing. The Doctor followed her example immediately, and I giggled. That seemed to signal to everyone that we were, in fact, all right. Ludo got up and began lumbering toward us, but Jareth stood up sharply and waved a hand at Ludo, who promptly fell on his back.

"Big bully," muttered Grace, letting go of me to help Ludo.

I sighed. "Must you always knock him over?"

"I must," said Jareth, rushing towards me. I took a step backward and the Doctor stepped forward protectively. Jareth glared at him as though he wanted nothing more than to impale the Doctor on one of the broken bits of stairs, but stepped back and looked me over from a couple of feet away. "How do you feel?"

"Like there's a rubber band wrapped around my head, but it's gradually getting looser," I said, not meeting his eyes. I looked instead at his unusual eyebrows.

Something yipped excitedly near Grace and Ludo, and Jareth looked over sharply.

"Ah yes, I'd forgotten," I said. "I've brought you a gift."

On cue, Grace held up a squirming bundle of fine fur and wrinkles tied with frilly silver ribbon. "This," I told Jareth, "is a basset hound. For you."

His long fingers closed over the puppy as if he expected it to react badly to glitter. "And what am I supposed to do with this?"

"Well, you feed her, keep her clean, give her a name. Who knows, she might even end up liking you," I said, with a small smile.

Jareth lifted her up and looked into her face sternly for a moment. "I think I'll call you Sarah."

I smiled, Grace snickered, and Hoggle's jaw dropped to the floor. First, he'd had to contend with Jareth essentially pleading with me, now he's cuddling a puppy. Poor Hoggle's worldview is never going to get a break.

The Doctor reached forward and patted Grace's shoulder. "I think we'd better head off."

Grace nodded, then reached up and cupped Ludo's leathery face in her hands. "You be a brave beastie and save more ladies, 'kay, friend?"

Ludo nodded dismally. He seemed to be blinking away tears, and his words came out indistinct."'Kay, frren. W-wull miss you, Grrace."

"Aw," I said quietly, with a sappy smile on my face.

Grace's lower lip trembled, and for a moment I thought she might pledge undying devotion to him. Finally she just sighed, ruffled his fur, and crouched next to Didymus. "Then I'm trusting you to take care of your big brother, Sir D."

"If he does not beat me to the challenge," Didymus chuckled. He bowed deeply to us both. "Ladies, you are most welcome anytime."

Jareth took a break from his staredown with the puppy to look meaningfully at me. This time I did meet his eyes and, just to test the waters, thought something very rude indeed. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and sighed. I turned to the Doctor in horror. "I don't think it worked, he can still read my mind!"

"No he can't, Tegan, it's just you. Sheesh, even _I_ heard that one," said the Doctor, giving me a disillusioned look. I blushed and turned back to Grace.

She finally looked over at Hoggle, who shuffled his feet. "Aw, c'mere," she cried, yanking him into a one-armed hug. He flailed until she let go.

"That's yer goodbye to me?" He was practically steaming. "A hug? You coulda brung plastic! But no, you brings a—" He spat rather than say the dreaded word a second time.

"Hull miss you too," Ludo rumbled, smiling now.

"Won't," Hoggle rejoined, averting his eyes.

"He really likes her," quipped Jareth quietly.

"Yeah," said the Doctor and I in tandem.

"Of course not," Grace said in response to Hoggle. She tried to hide a grin behind a tone of approval. "Why would he miss oubliettes and threatening kings and cleaners and thieves and holes and Bogs and monsters and falling bridges and bananas and robots—" She ran out of the fingers she'd been counting on. "And goblin armies and crystal-chasing? For just two friends?"

_Wow_, I thought. _Something tells me her story's going to be a lot better than mine._

"Four," Hoggle corrected, then stopped. He seemed suspicious that she'd tricked him into something, but couldn't put his finger on it.

"But I'm afraid things will never go back 'normal,' if you can call it that," the Doctor told Hoggle. He, of course, had offered no goodbyes, so he was reasonably surprised when Ludo, Hoggle, and Didymus glomped him at once. (Didymus glomped, Hoggle patted his back gingerly, and Ludo lifted him off his feet.) I wondered if Grace had coached them.

I smiled properly. Then my smile faded as I looked at them. Grace and the Doctor had gained a whole group of friends out of this experience. What was I leaving with? A lifetime's worth of nightmares. A phobia of peaches. The sneaking suspicion that every owl I see is looking at me and planning to abduct me in my sleep.

On that note, I suddenly felt a pair of eyes on me, and turned to see Jareth staring at me as if he'd never seen me before. He studied my face for a moment and said, "You should consider smiling more. Its suits you."

"I do smile, I just don't smile around you."

He placed his new puppy on the ground and approached me slowly. "But if you chose to stay, perhaps you would smile more than you think."

"What?" I said incredulously.

"I did save your life."

That didn't deserve a response, considering he'd created the link that almost killed me. I decided to mentally swear at him again instead.

"Have it your way, then." He lifted his chin. "Leave me alone forever."

"Ahem," Hoggle interrupted. "If you're alone, your majesty, it's only because you've locked yourself in this castle."

Jareth looked as if he'd bog Hoggle so he could angst and guilt trip in peace, but Ludo quickly rumbled, "Listen, King."

"We stays in the Labyrinth 'cause we likes it," Hoggle said. "Your bullyin' wasn't so bad until they got 'ere. We're not much better than you, when it comes to it."

"I disagree," Didymus said, drawing himself to his full height of nobility. "I think we could teach you to be as good as the best beast of us."

"Who wants to live forever anyway?" I said, looking over at the Doctor.

"You've seen how it's treated me," the Doctor added to Jareth, even though he looked back at the TARDIS. "If not for friends, I wouldn't last either."

Jareth looked at him, then glanced at Grace, and glanced longer at me. Finally, he looked back up at the Doctor.

"Your friends are... well-chosen, Doctor."

The Doctor half-smiled. "I rather think they've chosen me."

Grace raced around to stand behind me. "More than you will ever know," she said in my ear, deepening her voice dramatically.

The Doctor gave us the hint of a smile that was gone in a flash. Grace tugged on my arm. "I think I'm going crazy, because I think he knows, and that's impossible."

I wrenched my arm away and nervously massaged the bruises that were beginning to form. "Of course it's impossible. You just imagined that look."

Grace's voice got squeakier with her growing panic. "What look? I never said anything about a look!"

I shot her a frightened look. "Hush, you," I added, voice quivering.

We turned around to face the Doctor and Jareth, who were both staring at us.

"Hi," we said brightly.

The Doctor blinked at us. "Ready to go?" he asked.

"Oh, like you wouldn't believe," I sighed.

,.,.,.,.,.,.

The Doctor bounded ahead of us into the console room.

"It seems like a long time since we've had any fun, doesn't it?" I said conversationally to Grace.

"Mmhmm," said Grace, rubbing her eyes, "sure. What?"

Because that wasn't suspicious. "You didn't enjoy the Labyrinth, did you?"

She pulled a face. "Overall or in segments?" she finally said.

"Trust me, you don't want to say you enjoyed it."

"I didn't enjoy it," she said, both obediently and guiltily.

"I know just how to cheer us up," I went on.

"What do you have in mind? Does it involve food? Other than bananas, of course," she added hastily.

_Bananas?_ I thought. _What the heck's this about a banana?_ "Stop sidetracking," I scolded. "It's a game. I bet you ten quid you can't make the Doctor angry."

Grace looked incredulous. "What do you mean, make him angry?"

I sighed, wondering briefly how I could've managed to surround myself with such thick people. "I mean like the snooty, rebellious, disrespectful teenager that haunts his nightmares and keeps him from going domestic."

"Are you for real?" she asked, and I could see the horror coming over her face as she realized."Ohhh no."

"Ohhh yes," I said as the TARDIS VWORPed into the 1940s. It was just like the start of an episode.

"B-but you don't have ten quid." She scrambled backwards, away from me and right into the door to the console room. "You don't even have American money!"

"Grace. How many times have I played Pippin to your Merry?"

A whine her throat couldn't decide whether to mature into a growl or a groan for half a minute. Finally, she resigned herself, fully groaned, and gave me a one-fingered salute, glaring most disrespectfully. "We who are about to die salute you."

I returned her salute. "Just like that, Grace. Just like that."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

_I marched into the console room with Tegan eagerly on my heels and trying to mentally wash away the guilt. Now... what to do?_

_I reached up onto the console, lifted myself, and flopped down on it under the Doctor's nose. As he stared, I folded my arms, leaned back, and just stared in return._

_He glanced at Tegan, who facepalmed, looking so very ashamed of me._

_"Get off the console, Garace," the Doctor said evenly, which signaled my terror to grow._

_"'Queens never make bargains,'" I sniffed. "Lewis Carroll."_

_"That wasn't a bargain," he said in the low, dangerous tone of, "I think the ghosts are horrific."_

_I leaned forward, over-enunciating. "Then offer me a bargain."_

_His eyes didn't flicker. "If you get off the console, I'll buy you a lollipop."_

_My mouth watered, but Tegan raised an eyebrow. I couldn't give in that easily._

_I hadn't eaten in fourteen hours. Oh, yes, I could._

_"I will dismount the console," I said pompously, blinking, "because it is uncomfortable, not because you are bribing me."_

_"No lollipop."_

_I wanted to whimper, but I shifted back into position. "Then make me get off the console."_

_He pointed at the door and bellowed, "OUT!"_

_I shrieked and leaped down, hugging a pillar. "I'm off, I'm off!"_

,.,.,.,.,

There's something about when the Doctor gets angry...it doesn't really matter who he's angry with, it still makes you nervous. I tiptoed past Grace, who was whimpering, "Please, God, please, God, please, God." and sheepishly ventured, "_I_ wasn't sitting on the console."

The Doctor turned and looked at me long and hard. "All right," he sighed.

The whimpering coming from Grace suddenly stopped. Presumably, she'd heard the Doctor agree to buy me a lollipop. Her pleas for God to preserve her life abruptly morphed into a mutter, which the Doctor and I heard as we stopped by her pillar on the way out.

"And also please smite Tegan with Thy wrath…"

"By the way," the Doctor said, tapping her shoulder, "what's outside is our meeting with Jack Lewis."

I heard an unnatural cracking noise as Grace's locked limbs detached themselves from the pillar. As we left, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grace raise a fist at me. In response, I reached forward to grab the Doctor's arm. Grace's fist dropped out of the air like a rock. Outwardly I smirked, but I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She would not have hesitated to hit me.

No sooner did we step out of the TARDIS than Martha came bouncing out of a pub. The street was something out of a black-and-white photo, but not at all because it was three-dimensional and in color.

"Where've you been? Tolkien's in there, too! They want to meet you and…"

Martha trailed off as she noticed the bags under Grace's eyes. She turned to me and glanced at my ears. "Is that _blood_?"

I reached a hand up and touched my ear. It felt crusty. "How long has that been there?"

Her eyes drifted up to the Doctor, at whom she scowled. "Doctor, what have you been doing to them?"

I looked at him to see how he'd react, and he suddenly looked more tired than I've ever seen him. "Oh, I wish you'd been there."

Martha smiled slightly to herself before looking at my ears again, and heading for the TARDIS door. "I'm getting the medicine kit."

"Suits us; we've got a lollipop to buy." The Doctor smiled at me in what seemed like an affectionate way.

I suddenly saw Grace's face appear around his other side, peering up at him with a hopeful smile.

The Doctor sighed again. "Show of hands, who's been kidnapped recently?"

I proudly thrust my hand into the air. The Doctor looked expectantly at Grace for a moment. Just when I thought she was going to explode, he added, "No, no, keep them up while I count."

He turned to me, then back to Grace. "All right, then. One it is."

"Doctor's pet," Grace hissed at me.

I looked knowingly at her and nodded. "Doctor's pet," I murmured triumphantly.

Grace chuckled in spite of herself.

I'm sure you're all worried about how cruelly the Doctor and I had treated Grace, and to be honest, I wondered if I'd gone too far. I needn't have, of course. The Doctor didn't buy Grace a lollipop, but he did get her a small bag of marbles he'd caught her admiring. For her sake, I wish he'd just gotten her the lollipop.

_(You can't eat marbles. Stupid Doctor.)_

Two days later, she walked into the console room, looking extraordinarily peeved, announced that she'd lost her marbles, and stalked out. I asked her about it later, and she said the TARDIS had hidden them, and she'd said that to see if it would work. It did. The TARDIS has a rather sadistic sense of humor, you see.

In the meantime, Martha cleaned us up and gave us band-aids, after which we recounted our adventure in turns to her, as well as Jack and Ronald. Myself, in slightly less detail. I later had a private cup of tea with the Doctor, and I confess I recounted everything Jareth had said, for… various reasons. Mostly, I wanted the Doctor to know.

"What I want to know," Martha said with startling ruthlessness, "is why you didn't just slam Jareth into a wall the first time he showed up."

Grace laughed, evidently recovered from my prank after getting a chance to fill her stomach. "I did almost slap him. But we were a little on the cautious side, 'cause, well, we were an hour late. Tegan might have been turning into a goblin!"

I chuckled for a minute, before it sank in. "Wait a minute; that could've really happened?"

She blinked. "Why did you think he's called the Goblin King? Didn't you see the goblins?"

"Well, yeah," I said, a little miffed. "There was that whole thing with creatures popping their heads off and nearly mine, and then Jareth… scaring them off."

"Typical," said the Doctor. "Tegan versus the Fireys. Jareth wins."

"From what you've told me, he lost quite a lot," Martha said—more to me than anyone else.

"I wouldn't worry about that too much," I said, smiling a little. "I imagine he and Sarah are getting along just fine."

Then, that freaking little thought appeared in my head again. _And what are you leaving with? Nightmares, phobias, and..._

I looked down at my fingers, which were silently tapping out a four beat rhythm.

_The awful feeling that you've made the wrong choice._

(line)

A/N: All the songs featured were written by David Bowie and can be found on YouTube. Most of them were in Labyrinth.

Also, I feel like mentioning this for no reason at all... you might notice that when both Zoe and I describe Jareth, we say he has blue eyes. Fans of Labyrinth will say that he, in fact, has mismatched eyes, but this is not true. David Bowie, who portrays Jareth in the film, got into a fistfight when he was a teenager and his left eye was damaged and permanently dilated, which gives him the appearance of having one brown eye and one blue eye. I felt that this was a physical attribute unique to Bowie, so we didn't include it.

You may now return to chapter sixteen of "Saxon Ruled Britain Self Inserts Ruled the TARDIS" (properly, "While Saxon Ruled Britain, Self Insertion Ruled the TARDIS").


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